Hat rack.
This project started out of necessity. I have a lot of hats at home that never have a specific place to sit and not a lot of room in my bedroom due to being filled with climbing gear I needed something that would fit snugly in a corner and hold a lot of hats. Let the sketching begin. I didn’t want to use the standard hat rack that is bulky and ugly. They stand straight up, don’t look good, and have no aesthetic appeal. I would much prefer something that fits easily in a corner, looks nice, easy to move/break down since I move a lot, and hold hats. I think I accomplished that.
As you can see from the sketch it was a pretty simple design and that is the point. Originally I thought I would make the whole thing from PVC but that didn’t come to be the case.
We pitched our ideas to many classmates and teammates and got critique feedback. A team mate suggested that I make the hangers removable in case you want to add more hangers or remove something to set a laundry hamper in front of it or something. I thought that was a great idea. Figuring out how to accomplish that would’ve been difficult using only PVC but luckily wooden dowels are also readily available in garbage cans and reStore places as well. I found some 3/8ths inch wooden dowels back at my house and used these for the hangers which worked really well. I made a little jig next to a drill press to keep the angle of the holes all the same and drilled holes every 6 inches angled out at 30 degrees to make room for the hats.
As you can see I painted the hat rack black with multiple layers of paint and it looks very clean. It is able to break down and move easily I only had to glue two elbow joints to hold the angle of the rack.
8 Comments. Leave new
Very cool and looks very good in the room! I like the 2-leg support, I have a 3-leg easel and placing it in a small room is quite difficult, it also gives it a “leaning” feel. Great project!
This is a great project! I like the fact that you had a real need and decided to use the project as an opportunity to fill that need. It looks like the fit and finish is really good too. How were you able to make it bottom heavy so balances well?
This is great idea and you realized your vision incredibly well. The design is very nice – it looks like something you could buy at IKEA. I don’t know if guitar stands influenced your design at all but the hat rack looks a lot like a standard guitar stand which I think is pretty neat. Great work!
I love your idea of making a cantilever (physics-based) hat rack! And your execution seems flawless. It looks great and it sounds as functional, if not more functional, than the original goal. Congratulations on bringing your design to life. And I really like that you decided to build something that would be useful to you in your everyday life. The fact that you decided to keep it in the corner of your own room proves it worked out great! Overall, fantastic job!
This is a novel idea, and honestly I think it could be highly popularized. The idea of building furniture to hold your clothes/apparel is an awesome idea. I think you could continue improving this idea maybe make a tie rack or accessory for shirts etc.
I really like the fact that the rack was designed to fill a missing requirement in your room. I like how you painted the pvc pipe to change how the design ended up looking. The A symmetric aesthetic of the hat rack is a nice change from the typical hat rack that you find. overall nice work.
Great functional piece! I like your use of the cantilever geometry to create an interesting looking artifact that has a low area profile that can utilize corner spaces. Super functional and cheap. Cool idea!
Nice idea and well executed, it looks really cool! I like how the structure acts as a cantilever beam with the physics behind it. Do you know the max weight it can hold? Great job!