Rotating Tie Carousel

Hi Y’all, I’ve had this idea for some time - to have a better way to store and be able to have access to all my ties. I’ve had a drawer dedicated to all of them, but it wasn’t really practical. I had coat hangers that had a ribbed dowel rod so they wouldn’t slip off too easily but with the number of ties I have it took four separate hangers to store them and it worked for a good couple of years but ties would occasionally fall off and I’d find them all crumpled in the bottom of the closet. So I came up with this idea to have a rotating carousel with individual rods for each tie.

So in my brain I had it pictured exactly how I wanted this to look.

Materials:

• 3/8" Dowel Rods (2)
• 1/2" Plywood (scraps enough to do 2 8" rounds)
• Old wood coat hanger with rotable metal hanger portion
• Wood Glue
• Self Adhesive Green Felt Sheets
• Laser Paper
• Painters tape
• Sandpaper

Tools:

• Computer with Adobe Illustrator
• Band Saw
• Drill press
• 3/8" drill bit
• Drill vice
• Wood Mallet
• Multiple Various Clamps
• Square
• Screws
• Cordless Drill
• Palm Sander
• Tape Measure
• Pencil
• Scissor
• Metal Ruler
• Cutting mat
• Xacto knife
• Black Marker

Going into Tinkercad I started visualizing my idea. I wanted to take a piece of plywood and create a round that I could then stager the dowels around the outer area of the base. Given the number of ties I have I knew I was going to have to have at least two levels. With each level I would arrange the holes/spokes of the dowels giving me more tie spaces.

I would glue the two levels together and mount in the center a bolt that would attach a hanger to. After working through the design I realized I could take an old wood coat hanger and cut it to where the metal hanger portion would allow for rotation. Plus the wood could easily be mounted to the top of the rounds with wood glue and a couple of screws.

Going through my scraps in the time machine I found the perfect piece of plywood to cut down into two 8” rounds. I needed them to be big enough to handle 16 dowels around the outer surface. But not so big that it would be too cumbersome to spin/rotate when complete. With the rounds cut I gave them both a good sanding. (In hindsight I wish I had quarter round the edges to give top and bottom a smoother look, I might still be able to do so with my Hand Trim rounter).

Next was to plot out the holes for the pegs in a consistently spaced manner. I used Adobe Illustrator to create a template. Using only halve of an circle 8” in diameter. I created a 2.5” x 3/8" rectangle and then centered it on the half circle. From here I simple rotated the rectangle around the half circle using the center point as a starting point and constraining the rotation to snap at 45° angles. Then duplicating the 45° on around to the 90° position. Selecting both the 45° & 90° and duplicated them back into roughly the 22.5° & 67.5° positions.

With the top half positioned. I mirrored the top pegs down to the bottom of the half circle. This gave me a total of 16 pegs around the circumference. With my template created I printed out a copy then taped to the bottom of the plywood round which I then mounted in my vice. I set my drill depth to about .5” deep on my drill press. Lining up my drill bit to hit the center of the plywood rounds using the guide template. It was then a simple matter of unclamping and rotating the round around to line up with each hole positions and drill each hole.

Using an old wood coat hanger was the perfect solution ( rather than bolting the rounds together and drilling a metal hanger from a plastic one). You’ll want one that’s flat and not curved for like jackets and pants. Using my square I drew a line across the middle to where it would not interfere with the metal hanger that runs through the wood portion. Now to make sure I was getting a straight cut angle I turned the metal hanger upwards while laying on a flat surface. Then using a square block of wood flush against the hanger portion I lined up my square. This gave me a pretty straight and level line across the hanger. I then cut off the bottom portion of the hanger off.

Finding the center of my rounds I measured 8” in from each side. I lined up the wood portion hanger on top of the round to the square lines I marked. I drilled two pilot holes on each end of the hanger at an angle. Rather than going straight down, the angle will help hold the hanger in place especially after all the ties are in place (32 ties weight more than you’d think) I add glue to the bottom portion of the wood hanger and set in place and then screwed it to the top round.

I aligned the rounds making sure to stager the holes from bottom round and top round. I applied a liberal amount of glue to the top of the bottom round and then distributed evenly over the top. I then clamped the top and bottom rounds together. And let dry overnight.

I got 2 - 3/8” dowel rods (2’ long) and measure 2.5” segments along each rod. Then I cut down each rod until I had a total of 32 pegs. Once all cut too size I sanded down the ends to remove any spurs. And just gave a light sanding on the round surface.

Putting a drop of glue in a few holes at a time I grabbed my wood mallet and started tapping the dowels into place. Can’t do too many at a time cause all the glue would run out. I found 3-4 at a time allowed me to tap in the dowels without any glue dripping out.

Since I had set my depth gauge on my drill press all the holes were pretty uniformed so tapping the dowels in to bottom of each hole worked pretty good. Once all the pegs were in It was essentially finished. But there is one more step I wanted to do. I went back around and sand any spurs I missed or caused from hammering.

For this step I need my cutting mat, scissors, a metal ruler, Xacto knife, black marker, & sticky back felt sheets. I double checked my rod lengths 2”. Now to get a fairly precise piece of wrap around felt I took a scrap piece of mail and cut it into 4 strips 2” long and varying widths, 1.5”, 1”, .75”, .5”.

Then I test wrapped each piece around a dowel to see if it wrapped all the way around. Turns out the 1” x 2” was close enough. I then cut 2” strips out of the large sticky back felt I had. Then I measure an marked 1” increments along each strip. Then cut down each piece until I had 32 total. Then it was just a matter of peeling off the sticky back and wrapping each rod. I personally think it finished it off nicely. Plus will protect the ties from any wood friction or snags.

Now you’d think hanging 32 ties on the perfect tie holder would be a simple task. But believe it or not, its not. You have to be strategic in how you hang them. You can’t just go in a row otherwise the weight of the ties will cause it to lean and bind up the hanger to where it won’t turn. So the best course is to add two or three on one side then two or three on the other side as this will distribute the weight. Then rotate and add evenly as you go one side then the other. Makes it much easier. Once all the ties are on it will easily turn smoother.

I hope you enjoyed this instructable and it gave you some good ideas or tips how how to accomplish certain production elements. As always feel free to ask questions.

When I initially counted all my ties I had missed a few. (remember the crumpled ones in the bottom of the closet? Yep a few eluded my detection). So I came up with an add on to the bottom of the carousel. Another level if you will at a small circle of about 4” in diameter. I created the design in Tinkercad and went and created my drill template but that’s about as far as I went with it. It would give me another 12 tie pegs which I liked, however being situated in underneath the other ties it would be hard to see them for selection. Plus I discovered I could pair up some the lighter weight fabric ties on a single peg. If I end up with more ties this will be an option. Maybe a good place for all the novelty ties, Christmas, Halloween, etc.