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View Full Version : MDS-20BK questions..


kevincool87
10-02-2007, 07:46 PM
OK so I finally received my rack. To my surprise it looked much more complicated than I though it would be. What's more strange is that how people have never asked these question before... Maybe I'm doing it wrong..

Firstly the t-fitting. It's very distinctively angled and man I don't think I'll ever get used to that, as I won't be able to put up the stand correctly.

Secondly, I thought the tubes were just curved but it's curved both inwards and also slightly curved going up. So it's like a spiral shape. Which now means that the t fittings on the ends of the both left and right wings would have to be lower to the ones on the man body no questions asked.
Though it is a nice circular shape which kinda helps on placing my floor toms, I just.... how the hell do you get used to this stuff?

Thirdly, are the vertical tubes of the rack then supposed not to stand vertically up? Looks like no matter what I do it'll slightly lean towards outside. Did Roland do this so that it can take on weight? If they did, I'd understand and would think it's a good idea but....again wow what an extraordinary rack to get used to.

Finally but not least... rather very important, how in the world do you fold the left and right wings? All the horizontal tubes are of the same length and also the vertical tubes on the end makes overlapping not possible, unless I screw the t-fitting on the right wing's end off.

I saw a little footage on the rolandus.com site aout how David Garza was briefly going on about setting up the mds-20 rack, where he pulled the left wing and it gets stuck on the way because of the somehow overlapped right ring's vertical tube... lol. Next second he somehow pulled it off... Bweh?

Anyway thanks anyone for helping me out here, I love it and contrary to what others have said the rack and proper screwing of the t-fitting makes it unbelievably strong, way way more stronger than my Yamaha DTXtreme IIs rack. Although yes, the clamp does suck. If I lean slightly on one of the pads then it'll just slide down.

Thanks in advance
Kev

WildWes
10-02-2007, 08:18 PM
Kevin,

Once assembled can you post a photo(s) so we can see what your talking about with the curved (twisted?) rack tubes? I've pretty much replaced all the aluminum tubes with chrome steel and the clamps with hinged PDP and Gibralter.

Hinged clamps make life a lot easier with takedown.

BobbyMck2
10-02-2007, 08:58 PM
Kevin have you look at this ? http://www.roland.com/products/en/MDS-20BK/index.html

Jman
10-03-2007, 01:20 AM
The earliest MDS-20 racks had a problem with slippage .... those were racks built in early 2004 though ... Although this might not apply to your rack.... Roland came out with a pretty decent PDF that went into a little deeper detail on the rack ... I kept a copy of that on my PC ... so I thought I'd upload it for you.... J

kevincool87
10-03-2007, 01:58 AM
I see, thanks for the replies and the pdf file Jman. I guess I'll just have to live with it. As for the vertical tubes it's now pretty much parallel to each other, although if i move the rack around a couple of times it's tilted again. The left and right horizontal tubes don't slip at all with all my pads on them but I'll try that later on as it'll only be as much of a help to my situation.

Thanks again
Kev

kevincool87
10-05-2007, 04:56 AM
Well after a nice hour well spent into the rack it's now very stable and the clamps are much more stronger(screws&bolts issues).

All that's now left of is the spraying. I asked around and it actually looks like it's more than just a spraying around.

Bobby, what do you mean by prep work when getting it sprayed by car bodyshops?

Plus does anyone know what the rack is made out of? Is it Aluminium?