These are the two crates that contain the two sides of the rack. This particular rack in gloss black, but there are racks that come in various furniture-grade wood finishes as well as different colors. The album in the picture is there to try to portray the scale of the size of the crates, not because we couldn't find anywhere else to put it. Nor because we always seem to leave them lying around resting against some sort of equipment rack, even unassembled ones.

Let us spend a moment and bow our heads in thanks to all the wonderful people who spent part of their lives inventing power tool equipment. 16 screws per crate need to be removed.

We put all of our screws, except two per crate, into two Ziploc baggies that will go back into the crate, along with packing materials, for safe-keeping. This way we will have them if we ever need them instead of having to make that lame, and stupefying boring, run down to the hardware store looking for the right screws because we lost a bunch of them in all the years between the opening of the crate and the needing of the screws.

We performed the MXR Equipment Rack Assembly Task downstairs where there was both a lot of room and where the rack was going to be initially placed. The rack is somewhat heavy (but not prohibitively so; Neli and I carried ours with relative ease across the room, but going up stairs will require more effort and probably a lot more cussing) and there should be some consideration about where it is going to eventually be placed when assembling it. Not that we won't change our minds - or have them changed for us :-) - sometime in the future, but if you are like me you want to get the assembly done as quick as possible - so it is good not to have too many delicate things in the area whose cosmetic well-being always seems to somehow take a distant second place to the Getting the Equipment Rack Assembled NOW task.

We take a lot of pictures like this so we know what the side should look like if we (Neli does most of the packing, thank goodness) ever have to pack it up again.

The foam ends come off with a little back and forth wiggling - wiggling of the foam, not you, silly. You may have to lift the end up a little.

Now, with the plastic off, we see that there is a soft wrap covering and protecting the very fine finish of the wood or acrylic found on the sides of the equipment rack.

OK, enough with the pictures, we are finally getting to see some of that lovely finish on the MXR. Oooh! Aaaah! I know, I know, it is only a few square inches.