A Souped Up Boltz Rack
David Hicks | Published on 5/28/2024
In conjunction with this being the Century of Vinyl’s Revival, and the accolades heaped on my last furniture write-up of my wall-mounted turntable shelf, I’m bringing you a recap of my Boltz Record Rack modifications.
When I purchased my Boltz rack some years ago, I noted the shelf depth was 12”. Standard 12” record sleeves are actually around 12.75”. No biggy, except, your records when inserted on the Boltz shelf are doomed to stick out in front of or behind the shelf. And, at the time I purchased my rack, there was nothing to stop the records from pushing through the back of the shelf. Boltz has since come out with a Shelving Back Plate that you can add on to keep your records from pushing through. But when I purchased my rack, that didn’t exist. And, I actually called Boltz to see if they would make a larger shelf to accommodate the full width of a record cover. They got back to me several times to indicate they would consider the idea before finally rejecting my request.
So, I decided I could modify my Boltz rack easily enough on my own. It turns out that “easily” is a relative term. And, instead of a little lip on the back of the shelves, I thought a full back would give a more finished look. And, rather than just bolting a back onto the back of the Boltz shelves, I wanted to extend the depth so that the records wouldn’t be sticking out of the front. To that end, I purchased some Z-Bar aluminum in a 0.5” x 1” x 0.5” inch configuration.
The Boltz shelves have a downward-facing lip on the front and the back of each shelf, so it was easy enough to drill through those lips in the back and attach the Z bar so that the shelf was extended at the same time the upward-facing side of the Z-bar was positioned so that it formed a stop for the records in the back of the shelves. In addition to that edge acting as a stop it also was a perfect attachment point for the perforated aluminum sheeting that provides a full covering on the backside for what I think is a more finished look. Importantly, the attachment of the back also improves the structural side-to-side rigidity of the shelving unit.
Above: Z Bar detail; Z-Bar and back mounted; Drilled design edge wrapping detail.
While it is true that Boltz provides upright braces that bolt on the backside to add stability, and you can purchase extra uprights for the front, the uprights are each 1” wide, so you are reducing by a full 2” the 31.5” of useable shelf space on your “36-inch rack” per shelf if you use them- 31.5” is the inside distance between the end piece uprights. I thought that was a waste of shelf space and decided to fabricate something less obstructive while still providing structural support.
I purchased some threaded rod at my local hardware store and cut it into useable lengths for replacing the too-wide back mounted uprights that Boltz provided. The upright threaded rod uses the Boltz acorn nuts to secure them in place at the top of the rack and passes through to the bottom of the bottom shelf where it is secured with a nut. I covered the threaded rod with some thin-walled aluminum tubing for a cleaner look and to ensure there would be no abrasion on the record jackets from the threaded rods. But I also wanted to offer a bit of a divide for the 31.5” of records, so I made some jigs that would mount underneath each shelf. I threaded the front hole for screwing in the threaded rod that angles toward the front of the rack.
To make a flush mounting surface for the bottom nut underneath each shelf I cut some small pieces of the aluminum tubing with an angle on one side so that there was a flush surface contact point for the bottom of the shelf and for the nut.
In addition to the previously mentioned problems with the Boltz design, I took issue with the placement of the Boltz Casters. There’s no requirement that you spend extra $ to purchase the casters, but I like the increased elevation (3.75”) of the shelves, especially on the bottom shelf, as well as the ability to roll the shelf out for vacuuming underneath. You wouldn’t worry about vacuuming underneath if your bottom shelf was flat on the floor, and everyone else I know who owns a Boltz rack uses theirs without the 3” wheel-size casters installed. But, just to make things more complicated, I purchased a set, only to note once they were installed that the swivel action of the casters makes moving the rack a very precarious enterprise when your selves are fully loaded with hundreds of pounds of records. The mounting points for the casters, front-to-back, are 10.5” apart. This means, that as you are moving the rack if the front and back wheels happen to swivel towards each other, their center contact points on the floor can end up 7.0” apart, as each casters contact point is 1.75” from the pivot point where the caster mounts to the bottom of the rack. That makes the rack very tippy. So, I fabricated some aluminum bar brackets that I bolted to the bottom of the rack to bring the mounting points for the casters out another 1” on each side, front and back, and greatly improve the stability of the rack when moving it around.
(Yes, I added an extra wheel in the back)
As a final touch, I cut some clear plexiglass pieces to fit into the concavity on the inside of each endpiece on the shelf. This part of the rack design bothered me because the end pieces, as delivered with their inward-facing bends, did not present a flush surface for the records that contacted those end pieces. The plexiglass thickness (was it 3/8”? It’s been a while…) was just right for filling the space so that the inside surface was flush with the inside lip edge. I used some double-sided sticky tape to hold the plexiglass in place, though the installation of all of the records does a good job of that too.
So yes, it was a fair amount of work to modify my Boltz rack. Was it worth it? Absolutely. I appreciate the improved functionality of the rack and only wish that I could have purchased a rack with the design modifications I implemented. Then again, Ikea is cheaper and easier than buying and modifying a Boltz rack. I also thought that the Boltz upright pieces should have a more musical theme to their design rather than the triangular cutouts. My thought is that laser cutting should be able to accomplish any design one would like to order. I may be wrong, or it may be prohibitively expensive from Boltz’s business model perspective. But my thought was that they could offer Musical note designs, or side pieces that spell out “Jazz”, “Rock”, or “Classical”, as a way to label the shelves for the cataloging of your vinyl records. Or, maybe that’s just another one of my crazy ideas? As always, YMMV.
Pre-Covid masking, just to avoid inhaling the aluminum dust when sanding. And always wear hearing protection when working with power tools if you want to be able to continue to enjoy the nice sound of your stereo. 🙂