- Joined
- Oct 13, 2014
- Messages
- 9,459
Hi All,
The other day whilst trying to better organize my shop, I made a caddy to hold all, or at least some, of my pliers, wire cutters and the like, on my electronics workbench. I was inspired by a video I saw on YouTube by Adam Savage (Former host of the TV series Mythbusters), who espouses an anti-drawer philosophy and thus keeps all his most use tools at the ready on caddy/racks. While his rack design is very usable it didn't quite fit my needs.
I had been saving some short sections of PVC Pipe and figured I could use them to make a compact, circular rack that would fit on my bench. I also put a limitation that I could only use stuff I had on hand to make it, no purchased parts allowed.
First I mocked it up to get the basic clearances, etc. The 8" diameter outer ring is held to the inner piece of 4" pipe by fins made from a heat flattened, piece of pipe, glued in place. The inner bulkheads are ¾" PVC foam board, also glued and the bushings are turned from black Delrin.
The base is painted plywood with a piece of ⅝-11 threaded rod fastened to it with a flange I found in the scrap bin, all it needed was to be drilled and tapped for the rod. I covered the rod with a piece of rigid aluminum, electrical conduit and made a Delrin bushing to cover the jam-nut on top of the flange. The rod-conduit axil is capped with a circular handle made from an old hockey puck and a nut.
The rack turns nice and smooth with just the right amount of resistance so it doesn't spin too much, something I thought might be an issue if I used ball bearings.
Anyway, It was fun to build and now have ideas for more tool storage using this concept.
Thanks for looking.
The other day whilst trying to better organize my shop, I made a caddy to hold all, or at least some, of my pliers, wire cutters and the like, on my electronics workbench. I was inspired by a video I saw on YouTube by Adam Savage (Former host of the TV series Mythbusters), who espouses an anti-drawer philosophy and thus keeps all his most use tools at the ready on caddy/racks. While his rack design is very usable it didn't quite fit my needs.
I had been saving some short sections of PVC Pipe and figured I could use them to make a compact, circular rack that would fit on my bench. I also put a limitation that I could only use stuff I had on hand to make it, no purchased parts allowed.
First I mocked it up to get the basic clearances, etc. The 8" diameter outer ring is held to the inner piece of 4" pipe by fins made from a heat flattened, piece of pipe, glued in place. The inner bulkheads are ¾" PVC foam board, also glued and the bushings are turned from black Delrin.
The base is painted plywood with a piece of ⅝-11 threaded rod fastened to it with a flange I found in the scrap bin, all it needed was to be drilled and tapped for the rod. I covered the rod with a piece of rigid aluminum, electrical conduit and made a Delrin bushing to cover the jam-nut on top of the flange. The rod-conduit axil is capped with a circular handle made from an old hockey puck and a nut.
The rack turns nice and smooth with just the right amount of resistance so it doesn't spin too much, something I thought might be an issue if I used ball bearings.
Anyway, It was fun to build and now have ideas for more tool storage using this concept.
Thanks for looking.
