DIY CD Revolver Tower, Ikea Billy Style

Bratwurst7s

Bratwurst7s

In The Frying Pan
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Good Morning.

Like many (most?) of us I keep running out of room to store my CDs. Up until now I've been using some VCM revolving CD racks that I just stacked and screwed together after removing all of the bases except the bottom one.

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LOL, it doesn't normally stand there. It's just there waiting to go into retirement.

Anyway that thing has served it's purpose as a dense storage with a small footprint but has long since been overtaken by my growing collection. And the VCM racks are no longer in production. I've searched everywhere for more with no luck. So something completely new is in order.

So for the last 6 months I've been racking my little brain searching for ideas. Ideally it has to be something similar to what I've been using. The highest possible cd density with the smallest possible footprint. So early last December while searching the 'bay for VCM racks I spotted some Ikea Billy racks for sale. Narrow, tall. Hmn. Maybe.

Cheers,
James
 
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OK. So I looked a bit deeper at the Billy. 20cm wide, 17cm deep and 202cm tall. Space for ca 180 CDs. So I envisioned 4 of them joined together on a revolving platform.
http://www.ikea.com/de/de/catalog/products/90277145/
The link is in German but one should still be able to get the general idea.

So when Wife and Children asked Bratwurst what he wanted for Christmas it worked out perfectly. 1x Wife + 3x Children = 4x Billys.

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The idea looked good but I had a difficult time finding a ring bearing to use to make the revolver platform with. As usual I was thinking too hard and missed the simplest idea. A friend at work suggested simply using a rotating PC monitor platform as a base. Hmn. Good idea. Off to Amazon.
http://www.amazon.de/BECO-Drehtelle...9-6543946?ie=UTF8&refRID=1577GY67HWNY9WRG2BWJ

Keeping in mind the width/depth of the racks and 11.4kg each it looked like a 40cm diameter platform would be perfect. I weighed a sample of 25 CDs, added the weight of 4x billys (45.6kg) added a bit for fasteners etc and figured that a platform would need to be in the 150kg weight loading class. So far so good.

Cheers,
James
 
Considering their price of only €35 each the Billy racks are of surprisingly decent quality. Yes, they are only made of particle board construction but I was also expecting a pvc fake finish. I was surprised to find a real wood vernier on them. Thin but real, even the movable shelves have wood vernier. Construction was/is very simple, I only needed ca 30 minutes per rack to build them. I deviated from the basic construction in 2 ways. First, I used wood glue throughout when assembling the racks and clamped them in the key points overnight wile the glue dried. Second, rather than use the supplied nails to hold the backboard in position I used small screws with wide flat heads, 3x per top, middle and bottom. So for the 4x racks one would need 36 screws ca 3mm x 15mm. After drying the racks are quite solid. Should hold up for a long time.

Cheers,
James

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To join the racks together and provide support I chose some 18mm thick beach butcherblock style shelving boards from my local hardware store. I would have liked to find something a bit thinner because of weight, say 10mm, but 18mm is standard and finding something thinner raises the cost considerably. As it is 2x 40cm x 60cm boards only cost about €6 each. A friend that has a table saw cut the boards down to 39 x 39cm for me, and cut some of the leftovers into 13mm strips. More on that later.

Considering the overall height and weight I figured that for safetys sake I would need to somehow fix the top of the turret to the wall. Looking around in the leftover/recycle bin at work I found an old stud with a 30mm roller bearing attached and figured that I could use it as a center roller screwed to a board attached to the wall. More on that later. Anyway considering that I first drilled a 7/8" hole (ca 22mm)(Yep, still have some inch tools lying around). Then I used a step drill to open up the hole to 30mm. But I didn't go completely through, left a small lip at the 7/8" dia to keep the center roller/stud from being able to drop through the top board.

Cheers,
James

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For the next step having 1 or ideally 2 sliding 45/90° squares makes things a lot easier. I use them to quickly and accurately mark my drill locations. Having 2 means being able to set each to a different marking depth. And there is the step drill used in the last post.

Cheers,
James

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Because of the offset between width and depth and the hollow area on the back of each rack I needed some 13mm strips to mount on one side of the back so that everything stays square when fastening the racks to each other. (the right side looking from the back). One note. Considering that even with marking my hole positions as carefully as possible I was still hand drilling my holes. So considering that I numbered each rack and the trim strips for position so that I didn't mix them up and the holes would all line ip where they were supposed to. The strips were attached with glue and 3.5x25mm screws. Don't forget to countersink the holes to that the screw heads are flush or slightly sunk. That goes for the entire rest of the project.

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Next the racks were joined together. I stood them temporarily on the base plate and marked the drill points. 3 screws each. Inset 11mm from the outside edge. From the top I used 3.5cm and 100cm, and measured from the bottom 12cm. Just under the top and middle boards, and just above the bottom board.

The holes were first drilled at 2mm, including pilot holes. Then the outer holes were opened up to 4mm. 3.5mm x 45mm screws were used, a box of 100 was actually cheaper that trying to buy only exactly as many as needed. Here is where the sliding 45/90° square comes in handy so that all of the markings are accurate. IF I had been sure of what I wanted I would have done this marking and drilling before building the racks. That would be best so you guys can learn from my mistakes and do it that way. Ideally using a drill press or drill attachment like I have on my 1/2" drill in the earlier post to get perfectly square holes.

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Next the top plate was carefully positioned. Again using the sliding squares helped with quickly and accurately getting an equal amount of overhang on all sides. It's really important to get the top plate centered or as the tower is rotated it will wobble after being attached to the wall. Oh. Ideally positions of the screw holes should be drilled before you do this because if you forget you get to position the top plate twice. Once before and once after you remember to drill the holes. Then I used 2 clamps to hold the board in place and used the board as a template to drill pilot holes in the top of the rack. 3 on each side and 4 in the middle.

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Next I used the top plate to transfer the holes to the bottom plate. Don't forget that for the bottom plate the holes in the middle have to be moved towards the outside by about 35mm because of the cutouts on the base of the racks (used to clear baseboard trim during normal use against a wall. If you forget this step you will be wondering why you only find air when you go to drill pilot holes in the base. Ask me how I know this. After drilling the base plate I opened up the upper holes to 4mm and countersunk them. Again, 3.5mm x 45mm strews were used to attach the top, the wholw assembley was turned on it's head, the base was drilled, base plate holes enlarged and countersunk and the base attached. We are almost finished. Oh. I made a simple X and O marking on each plate and the top/bottom of the rack to orient them.

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So this is how it looks when finished. It's surprisingly stable as is but I will of course make a brace to attach it to the wall on top. I still have to buy and cut some boards for that but will post when that step is finished. Total outlay in cash was about €175. This is the absolutely smallest footprint with the highest CD density that I can think of. It should hold somewhere around 640 CDs but at the moment is only about 2/3 full.

So I'm throwing down the gauntlet. Figure out how to get more CDs into a smaller space for less money. The challenge is on!

Cheers,
James

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PS: 8+ years later and I never did make an upper stability attachment to fasten the thing to the wall. It is stable enough that I have long since stopped worrying about it.
PPS: The 150kg revolver plate that I bought is NLA, with 100kg revolvers being the only thing like that that is around now, so something else needs to be found.
PPPS: What with the paper sleeve "Digipacks" there are now more than 800 CD's stuffed into the rack.

:beerchug:,
James
 
Bratwurst7s said:
PPS: The 150kg revolver plate that I bought is NLA, with 100kg revolvers being the only thing like that that is around now, so something else needs to be found.
Click to expand...

"Lazy Susan" bearings can be found easily on Amazon with some heavy duty weight ratings.

VXB 4J-4TV9-KL00 1000 lb Capacity 12 Lazy Susan Bearing 5/16 Thick Turntable Bearings Brand : Amazon.ca: Home

VXB 4J-4TV9-KL00 1000 lb Capacity 12 Lazy Susan Bearing 5/16 Thick Turntable Bearings Brand : Amazon.ca: Home
www.amazon.ca

I don't think Ikea sells the Billy CD tower anymore, at least in Canada.
 
willyrover said:
"Lazy Susan" bearings can be found easily on Amazon with some heavy duty weight ratings.

VXB 4J-4TV9-KL00 1000 lb Capacity 12 Lazy Susan Bearing 5/16 Thick Turntable Bearings Brand : Amazon.ca: Home

VXB 4J-4TV9-KL00 1000 lb Capacity 12 Lazy Susan Bearing 5/16 Thick Turntable Bearings Brand : Amazon.ca: Home
www.amazon.ca

I don't think Ikea sells the Billy CD tower anymore, at least in Canada.
Click to expand...
The Billy/Gnedby is still sold here, but only in white now. I went to Ikea last month to buy 4 more and build a second rack but failed to look in their catalog beforehand and was sadly disappointed that they no longer had them in wood veneer.
However, Amazon sells similar racks in 101cm height that can be stacked, width/depth are the same. They only have a simulated wood vinyl finish but still look better than white.

Yeah, I have looked at a lot of different bearing rings on Amazon and think that something like your link is the best answer. :thumbsup:

:beerchug:,
James
 
willyrover said:
"Lazy Susan" bearings can be found easily on Amazon with some heavy duty weight ratings.

VXB 4J-4TV9-KL00 1000 lb Capacity 12 Lazy Susan Bearing 5/16 Thick Turntable Bearings Brand : Amazon.ca: Home

VXB 4J-4TV9-KL00 1000 lb Capacity 12 Lazy Susan Bearing 5/16 Thick Turntable Bearings Brand : Amazon.ca: Home
www.amazon.ca

I don't think Ikea sells the Billy CD tower anymore, at least in Canada.
Click to expand...
I use that to make a turntable to hold heavy amps while on the bench . easy to turn while amp is standing on its side .

nashou
 
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