Just an end-view of the rail. Its plain extruded aluminum 1"x5/16"

Here it is with a threaded insert installed. Off in the fuzz you can see an M2.5-8mm screw inserted. THIS SIZE BOTTOMS OUT! I used this length in this case because it DOES bottom out and keeps the rail from sliding for my picture. UPDATE Further playing confirms that the 8mm screw just fits if you are using thick ( .125" ) metal for your panels. Screws are cheap, buy both sizes.

Another view of the rail, this time with an M2.5-6mm screw inserted. It goes flush with the rail surface and doesn't quite bottom out. This should be just fine for mounting most panels to these rails as long as the panels are 1.5-2mm thick. You would probably have issues mounting Paia thickness panels ( .125" with these screws, but in that case the 8mm should work for you.M2.5-7's would be perfect but I haven't found a source. I ordered these screws from Micro Fasteners. They have a wide variety of screws and stuff and ship quickly.

I ordered some 1.25x1.25" u-channel aluminum, which due to the 1/8" thickness leaves a perfect 1" wide inside channel for the t-strut. I then trimmed it down to approximately 5/8" tall, drilled properly spaced holes ( in my case for FracRak ) and then painted it black using Rustoleum "Hammered Finish" paint. If you made your racks wider, you could use the channel without cutting it down. Why U-channel and not plain angle or something? I wanted to support the rail front and rear. Its pretty darn sturdy. Why none spaced for Euro? I picked up 6 6U Euro chassis for around $100 total surplus...

I cut the T-strut down to approximately 19" lengths ( you can see a pile of cut strut to the right of the rack ) then mounted it with a philips screw and a Vector square nut on the front and rear. I used the vector nut because it takes the slightly beefier 4-40 screw. The wooden case is my 3/4" birch plywood rendition of a Raxxess rack. If you've owned one of those, they are heavy and made of press board. This is much much lighter and with screws, glue, and biscuits you could probably park a tank on one. I did have some trouble first go-round keeping them square, but that's a rant for another day.

On the right is a short chunk of t-strut. Out of all this I only wasted 8 pieces this length ( about 3" ). The bolt and nut in the middle are what come in the 44 piece connector mounting kit from Vector. This seems to be the cheapest way to buy the nuts. A nice thing about those bolts, they fit in the slots so they may be usable in some fashion. On the left is what almost caused my permanent insanity... What I decided to do to mount FracRak modules was to cut Euro threaded rail down into two hole sections ( a cable cutter worked great ), and put an M2.5x5 set screw in one hole. You slide it to the appropriate point and tighten the setscrew thus solving the complaint of the nuts sliding around while you try and mount a module. I'm sure someone will come up with a better less sanity-reducing way to do this, but it seems to work for me. Another option is the middle of the t-strut is plenty meaty. You could easily drill and tap a hole there, but that's something I wanted to avoid. Besides, if you wanted to do that, just buy bar cheap bar stock. Drilling and tapping 288 holes is not my idea of a fun time... ( and this is??*snicker* )

Here's a close up of the inserts The top rail has them aligned and tightened, the bottom has them just all loaded in one end before alignment. I made two tools for aligning, one is a stick with nails for rough alignment, the second is a scrap of t-strut with two of the previously mentioned Vector bolts slid to the proper distance and held with nuts. I clamped the bolts in the drill press before mounting and filed the threads off the end so they slide easily into the 2.5mm threaded holes. Now I measure and tighten the first insert, then I use the tool to align and hold all the rest. In the back you can see angle brackets that I will use to mount power distribution boards that will connect to about 50lbs of Power One and Condor linear supplies.

Cellphone photo of the completed racks. Gap at the bottom of the racks is taken up by 2U of 19" rack rails. All little inserts are installed and tightened down.

This is the little alignment tool I made. Scrap of t-strut, two of the Vector bolts slid into the slots head first and locked with nuts. Turned the ends of the bolts down so they are a slip-fit into the threaded inserts. Drilled holes on either side of one bolt so I could fit the hex screwdrive through the tool. Was actually really easy to use.