Saturday, October 31, 2020
Who says woodworking and IT don’t mix?
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| My server rack as planned (left) and as built (right) after finally assembly in my shop before I moved it into my office. |
A while back I wrote about how IT and woodworking are similar, as they both are really about problem solving.
Yet whenever I assert this, I still draw skeptical looks.
People just cannot see how turning something as tangible as a few boards of wood into a piece of furniture is anything like manipulating a bunch of ones and zeros that only exist in cyberspace.
Well, this month, I’ve finally provided a real-world example of how IT and woodworking can mix by creating my own network/server rack.
What’s a network/server rack you ask and why did I build it?
Well, simply put, a network/server rack is a place were IT professionals like me can hang and organize the assorted bits and pieces of equipment that allow computers to talk to each other
and access files and applications that are not directly loaded on them. I decided I needed a rack now after I acquired and fixed an Uninterruptable Power Supply unit that was meant to hang on such a rack.
I already had a small battery backup unit – or UPS for short – on the floor behind my desk, but its battery had long since died and even when new, it wouldn’t power my gear for much longer that 10 minutes if the power went out.
This rack mounted UPS would power almost all of my gear for about an hour and the cost of replacing its battery wasn’t much more than replacing the battery in my smaller unit, so it was a no-brainer as to which one I should fix.
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| This was only some of the networking and storage gear that was scattered around my office that I was able to consolidate into my rack |
I could have just let it sit on top of a filing cabinet with my PCs stacked on top of it, but that seemed kind of junky. Plus, my other networking equipment was scattered all around my home office and for years I’ve been telling myself I really need put it all in one place and organize it better. So, this just seemed like the perfect opportunity to take care of two problems at once.
The first thing I did was to go online and see how much one of these network racks cost, and I was shocked by their price tags. Even the simplest two-post models were well over $150!
Admittedly, I’m a cheapskate, but that seemed pretty excessive to me for what is essentially two pieces of perforated angle iron held in a vertical position and connected at the base. I knew I could get that angle iron for about $30 at a big-box hardware store and couldn’t see why I needed to spend $120 more for one that was already put together.
After about 10 minutes of additional web research, I not only found that making your own DIY rack was not only feasible but really easy. I’d even come up with a design that would make it look more furniture-like and less industrial-looking.
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| Two views of my home-made rack, all set up and in place in my office. The aim was to have it look as much like a piece of furniture as it could while still serving its function holding all my tech gear. Proof that IT and woodworking do mix! |
The next step was to translate that idea into a physical set of plans. I’ve been doing woodworking long enough to know that the plans I create in my head, don’t always work out the way I think they will in the real word. Inevitably, I miss some small detail that winds up throwing off the entire project and I then need to spend hours figuring out a work-around to get myself back on track.
That’s why I have started using SketchUp.
This free, 3D-modeling program lets me build the project virtually almost in the same way I’d build it out in my shop. This way I can see any problems that may arise and fix them before I start cutting any wood.
And sure enough, while coming up with the virtual version you see here, I did find one of those small hiccups. But unlike hours it would have taken me to fix in the shop, I corrected the plan with just a few clicks of my mouse, so that when I did get to the shop there were no delays.
The one thing my plans did not show, however, was how sturdy and rigid the final product would be. That’s why the finished product looks a bit different from the plan. These are the kind of unexpected things I don’t mind, because it actually saved me some time in the shop!
Once I had finalized the plan on the computer and ordered the hardware online (I found a few “genuine” rack parts online that were even cheaper than the angle iron I was going to use from the big-box store), I ran out and got two, eight-foot 2x4s and started my build.
I was able to cut and assemble all the parts in a single day. Staining the wood to match my office future took about another week, but if I’d decided to paint it black, I could have finished this project in a single weekend.
So here it is, proof for all those remaining doubters that you CAN combine woodworking and IT in a very practical way.
Now, I’ve just got to figure out how to build that wooden computer case I’ve always wanted….
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