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DIY IKEA Lack Rack - Preparing the legs?

We are pulling together the parts to build my daughter her first audio rack on the cheap. Another post here about wooden racks brought to my attention some of you who have built racks from IKEA Lack tables, and I became very interested. I already have experience assembling an IKEA wall cabinet for my vinyl, so know that their composite materials are quite strong.

For the rack, you stack the tables up after cutting the legs to size that become your shelves. I want to spike the bottom of the legs, so that they stack up that way. The issue, is the core of the legs are hollow with inside dimensions of 1.75" x 1.75." Dimensional lumber like a 2"x 2" is only 1.5." My idea was using stock square lengths of turning wood that you can get 1.75" x 1.75.

Should I fill the entire length of the legs with the wood, or just insert a shorter piece into the bottom of the legs for the spikes? One of the benefits that's been said about the IKEA composite materials is low resonance even though it's strong. So, will adding a full length of wood to the core of the legs affect the resonance properties? I can go either way.
Kenny
kennythekey

Showing 6 responses by kennythekey

kennythekey OP
593 posts
 

B,

From the pictures I've seen, just the bottom of the legs have fiberboard. Si if you cut them open they're hollow. Here's a link:

http://www.innerurban.com/innerurban/audio/labels/DIY%20Audio%20Rack.html

Kenny

kennythekey OP
593 posts
 
B, Yup, that's what I have to do. So, if these legs were once filled with fiberboard, and now they're just fiberboard end caps, what's best to fill-in the legs with for resonance? So, that's the question.
Kenny
kennythekey OP
593 posts
 
B, That's a great idea using epoxy as a filler. The only downside would be the amount required. I will have twelve legs that average 7" each. Except, for the fiberboard inserts at the ends there's probably 5" of cavity in each leg, so 60" total. That's a lot of epoxy. What do you think about using sand instead?

For the bottom base, we'll be using Herbie's Giant threaded Isolation discs, so that's where we splurged. The legs are getting spikes.

My daughter already got the IKEA tables, so we'll stick with those. Thanks for the Besta suggestion.
Kenny
kennythekey OP
593 posts
 
Now, I get ya B!

I wasn't going to try to find fiberboard to fill the cavities, because it only comes in sheets (I think). I was going to use wood turning stock that would perfectly fit the 1.75" x 1.75" cavities. That got me started to wonder if wood, like soft maple for example, would resonate more than the original fiberboard legs that were used in the past Lack tables. And, what the good reviews that I read are based upon.

Now, I'm pondering if just leaving the cavities hollow, but caped, would be just as good as anything you could fill them with. Obviously, I don't have much knowledge about resonating materials, so why I'm stumbling around.
Kenny
kennythekey OP
593 posts
 
B, Yes it's easy to overthink this at this price point. Thanks, for your input.
Kenny
kennythekey OP
593 posts
 
Update - As it turns out, the IKEA shelves or table tops are not filled with fiberboard, so used only in the corners. Instead, they are for the most part hollow, but use a paper honeycomb structure for strength. Essentially, these tables are mostly air.
Kenny
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