simple oak towel rack end-piece
Posted: Tue Nov 21, 2017 9:45 pm
All:
Another quick project. Somehow in moving, I managed to rent a 4BR house that had zero towel racks. Not in the bathrooms, not in the kitchen, no where. Strange but true.
The obvious choice, of course, is to go to Wall-Mart/Home-Depot/Lowes/Target/... and get a bunch of cheap metal ones.
But, I have two 12-foot pieces of red oak 2x6 (actually 1.5 x 5.5) that have been in the garage, waiting to be used for something like 5 years.
So down came the oak, with about 5 feet chopped into 10-inch chunks, yielding one pair of ends in each.
The design was done in AutoDesk Fusion360, with the toolpaths generated through BobCAD v29. One thing I really love about doing CNC work is that, as long as it doesn't hugely complicate the fabrication, things like the outside profile of a part is essentially arbitrary. So, taking that for the creative freedom it offers, I asked myself over and over "what ELSE have I ever wanted a towel rack to do?" Some of those answers were:
1) Hang a hanger on either end, so that it doesn't fall off or get out of balance.
2) Hang a BUNCH of hangers in that same location, without them coming off and sliding down the towel.
3) Hang "intimate" clothing items like a t-shirt, the wife's bra or similar without falling onto the floor when the towel is removed.
4) Hang yet another coat hanger (do you get the idea hangars always seemed to appear on the towel racks in the past? )
5) Have TWO towel rods, with enough space for towels to dry, but not so much it sticks out, and have them offset in height.
6) They need to be STRONG, and won't just fall off the wall like those metal ones do (when not installed properly).
7) They need to be STRONG in the internal structure. For this, I rotated the parts in the wood so that the grain goes straight down the arm.
8) The towel rods are to be 3/4" diameter lucite (plexiglas). They might not be perfectly rigid, but mold does NOT grow on them .
9) The rod-holes should go all the way through, as an extended rod can provide space for hanging yet other things, like a washcloth.
With those expectations, I took a little time to design something fun. Below are some images of the Fusion design, and two of the ways it's intended to be used: normal through-rods, and open-ended rods.
The Fusion 360 design: Mounted, in a bathroom, but lacking stain and the hole plugs yet: Just for fun, I decided to see if there was a useful configuration for a kitchen towel rack...
Cheers!
Thom
Another quick project. Somehow in moving, I managed to rent a 4BR house that had zero towel racks. Not in the bathrooms, not in the kitchen, no where. Strange but true.
The obvious choice, of course, is to go to Wall-Mart/Home-Depot/Lowes/Target/... and get a bunch of cheap metal ones.
But, I have two 12-foot pieces of red oak 2x6 (actually 1.5 x 5.5) that have been in the garage, waiting to be used for something like 5 years.
So down came the oak, with about 5 feet chopped into 10-inch chunks, yielding one pair of ends in each.
The design was done in AutoDesk Fusion360, with the toolpaths generated through BobCAD v29. One thing I really love about doing CNC work is that, as long as it doesn't hugely complicate the fabrication, things like the outside profile of a part is essentially arbitrary. So, taking that for the creative freedom it offers, I asked myself over and over "what ELSE have I ever wanted a towel rack to do?" Some of those answers were:
1) Hang a hanger on either end, so that it doesn't fall off or get out of balance.
2) Hang a BUNCH of hangers in that same location, without them coming off and sliding down the towel.
3) Hang "intimate" clothing items like a t-shirt, the wife's bra or similar without falling onto the floor when the towel is removed.
4) Hang yet another coat hanger (do you get the idea hangars always seemed to appear on the towel racks in the past? )
5) Have TWO towel rods, with enough space for towels to dry, but not so much it sticks out, and have them offset in height.
6) They need to be STRONG, and won't just fall off the wall like those metal ones do (when not installed properly).
7) They need to be STRONG in the internal structure. For this, I rotated the parts in the wood so that the grain goes straight down the arm.
8) The towel rods are to be 3/4" diameter lucite (plexiglas). They might not be perfectly rigid, but mold does NOT grow on them .
9) The rod-holes should go all the way through, as an extended rod can provide space for hanging yet other things, like a washcloth.
With those expectations, I took a little time to design something fun. Below are some images of the Fusion design, and two of the ways it's intended to be used: normal through-rods, and open-ended rods.
The Fusion 360 design: Mounted, in a bathroom, but lacking stain and the hole plugs yet: Just for fun, I decided to see if there was a useful configuration for a kitchen towel rack...
Cheers!
Thom