Introduction: Shoe Shelves (PVC & Glass)
Ello guys. After a long time, thinking and questioning myself about this project, i decided to document and publish it. But important thing to say is that I couldn't do it without the help from The Community.
Thank you very much guys for supporting me, I really appreciate it.
The Shoe shelves that I created, was born by the idea of some other shoe racks that i founded on Instractables. And I was thinking, why not add glass or acrylic plates instead of wood or pvc pipes. After a period of time drawing and wrecking my head about it, I came with the final concept of The Shoe shelves.
Step 1: Step1
* Please consider that this project is a little bit complicated,well it was for me, & the following pics about the construction & cutting length of the parts is drawn in Paint.
So in this pics you can see where Tee & Knee parts are. I really hope you can understand the design and measurements given in Detail A, B & C.
And important thing to mention is, my paint skill aren't so much great, so no hard feelings. Off course this would be much easier to make with X parts, but unfortunately in my town there wasn't such part.
Step 2: Tools & Materials
Tools:
- Electric Jigsaw
- Battery drill
- Hot air gun
- PVC pipe welder
- Plastic hammer
- Measuring tape
- Marker
- Right angle tool
- Little leveling tool
- 6mm & 5mm drill bit
- Soldering iron (optional)
Materials :
- Pvc pipe - 14m
- Tee part - 36pcs
- Knee part - 8pcs
- Pvc cap - 8pcs
- Adjustable cabinet legs - 8pcs
- Glass shelf pins - 50pcs
- Glass or acrylic plates- 12pcs
Step 3: Detail A
First things first is, take one long pipe and measure 22cm and make 14pcs of it. So, wait why 22cm but 20cm, like shown in Detail A ? Well its because, 1cm is going it the fitting part, in which case 22-2=20cm (1cm on each end of the pipe) . The same method will be for all parts.
Be very caution when marking 1cm & where you need to cut the piece.
Once you finished with the 22cm part, its time to cut 12cm long parts.As i mentioned before 12-2=10cm, which on Detail A. You need 4pcs of it. To sumarize:
Parts neede are :
- 22cm - 14pcs
- 12cm - 4pcs
After all that needed to be cut down is finished, it's time to assemble it, with 4 Tee-parts & 1 Knee-part. You need to make 4 of those rods, just like in pic.
*There are two different pipe welders on pictures. Well my first pipe welder died couple of days ago :( , so i bought a brand new one, which you can see in Tool Step. :)
Over Detail A is finished, yeyyyyy. Awesome job :)
Step 4: Detail B
Detail B is for little bit more complicated than Detail A. We need 2pcs of Detail B.
Parts that needs to be cut down are :
- 4cm- 2pcs
- 4.5cm - 2pcs
- 8cm - 2pcs
- 10.5cm - 2pcs
You'r wondering why 4.5cm & 10.5cm, well it's because 4.5+4+5.5=10cm (5.5cm is the length of Tee part). Wait that's not possible to be =10cm, riht ? Now, if we consider 4.5cm long part, you'll get 4.5= 2.5+1+1; 1cm is the length which goes in the Tee or Knee part. Same principle is for 10.5cm piece and as for others.
After the parts are cutted down,they need to be carefully aligned & put together, as shown in the pics.
I hope you can see clearly how Tee part is positioned for 90 degree angle, in reference of the other one. To determine the right angle, please use the right angle tool (don't be like me).
Yeyeyeyyy, level 2 finished.
Step 5: Detail C
Detail C is a lot more complicate than the previous two parts. Think it trough before anything,as I said before don't be like me. I wasn't careful so i needed to reassemble& assemble it all over again.
Parts needed are:
- 4cm - 2pcs
- 4.5cm - 2pcs
- 8cm - 6pcs
- 10.5cm - 6pcs
In this part the help of right angle tool is required. So position the Tee parts just like in the pictures. Lets assume that T1, as marked in the pic, is at 0 degree angle, so T2 is +90 degree angle on T1 & T3 is -90 degree angle on T1.
Hope you understand the concept of the idea. Once you carefully position it, assemble it right away, so that looks like as shown.
*If you have a couple of problems while assemble part, use hot air gun to correct it.
Level 3 finisheddd,yeyyyy. If you have finished all 3 Details, then you are awesome. :)
Step 6: Supporting Parts
Once the Details are finished, we need supporting parts,in another words, putting together all the Details with pipes.
First is putting together B & C parts. For this step new parts are required.
Parts needed :
- 32cm - 22pcs
Well, that's lot of pipes, right ? Please don't forget, that 1cm goes in the fitting part at each end.
B part is first to be welded with supporting pipes. That task is done easy & fast. Again use the right angle tool to check if the pipe was welded straight. Now put C part facing the other end of the pipe & weld it . The 2 parts are assembled together as shown.
Do the same thing for the other 2 parts, and once that's finished, weld all of them so that you get the whole background supporting part.
Step 7: Side Parts
Now, when that is all done; take the A part & weld down the side pipes. You can see that there is 1cm marked lines which goes in the background supporting part. Do this for the rest of the A parts. Once that's assembled, weld it to the background supporting part, as shown & carefully adjust the right angle.
*If you have any problem with welding those 2 parts & adjust the right angle, feel free to use hot air gun.
Repeat the process carefully, until you have the base of the shoe shelves. It looks awesome, right? But it has a little problem, it's uneven at the bottom.
Step 8: Leveling
This uneven problem can be solved with pvc caps & adjustable cabinet legs.
Flip the shelves upside down & with precision weld the caps. Try using the leveling tool to straight up the cap.
I used my little leveling tool, which is a keychain & basically you don't need a bigger one than this. Once the caps are in the place, mark the hole where the screw nut will be. Use 6mm drill bit to do it. When the hole is drilled, put the screw nut & position it straight.
Use hot air gun to heat up the screw nut & pvc around it. But be very very careful not to burn or melt the pvc. Setup the temperature of the hot air gun on medium & do the whole process with extreme patience. And don't burn yourself (like i did).
When the temperature is just before melting, use plastic hammer to push the screw nut down in cap. Screw down the cabinet legs and see how it looks & does it need any adjustments.
Now the shoe shelves can be properly leveled, depending on the surface, where you want it to be.
Step 9: Plates & Pins
If you manage to finish all the steps till now, then you'r awesome. But few little steps needs to be done before the shelves are finished.
Before we do anything, lets talk about glass & acrylic plate. In my town I couldn't find acrylic plates & if i could they would be expensive, instead i used glass plates. Off course glass plates are far more fragile than acrylic ones & glass is sharper than acrylic. If you have the possibility to by acrylic ones, use it.
Plates are dimensions of 29x33 cm.
Now mark the holes for the glass pins, using the right angle tool to evenly mark them. After that, drill the holes with 5mm drill bit & use the hot air gun if you can't easily drill trough the pvc. Another solution is to use the soldering iron with sharp 5mm bit in it, to heat up the material and make a little dent, so that the point of the drill will easily attach and remove the material.
When drilling is over, time to put pins in the holes as shown above. In Materials part I said you need 50 pcs of pins, well the right number is 48pcs, but 2 extra ones are just for precautions.
In the last photo you can see how it looks like with the plate on. Pretty neat right?
Step 10: Finishh
Place the shoe shelves where you want it to be and put on the plates.
You have yourself a shoe shelves made out of he pvc pipes & glass.
I hope you enjoy making it & if you have some kind of problems & comments feel free to ask.
I would love to hear your thoughts about it & how your shoe shelves turned out to be.