Sunglasses Rack

by tobychan in Workshop > Organizing

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Sunglasses Rack

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I have about 14 pairs of sunglasses kicking about and thought they could do with somewhere to display them rather than sat in an old Tesco carrier bag! 
What can I say? Women collect shoes, I err, collect sunglasses!

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With all these pairs everywhere, not forgetting the Harley Davidson helmet of course, I'm going to need a fairly substantial rack to hold this lot.
First I counted all my pairs and added 2 for when I inevitably buy more pairs!
Then I found the largest pair and the smallest pair and offered them up against each other.

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I figured I'd make the holes for the arms to slide through, as wide as the smallest pair of sunglasses. The arms on the bigger pairs can just fold in so they fit, where as the smaller ones won't stretch to wider holes, if that makes sense?
So I marked a piece of 6mm MDF board out to the correct width, 14cm wide in this case.

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I spaced the holes vertically based on the largest pair of sunglasses, this way, you can put a pair back on any space without any getting crammed up.
Once I made sure the initial concept worked, I could then cut the board. Again, holes etc are always easier drilled on a larger piece of wood than a smaller one.

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Now I wanted to find a way of having the stand stood securely upright especially as the Harley Davidson helmet is right at the top and the heaviest item.
Some sort of spine bolted onto a base plate would be the best bet and I found the perfect solution. An old spinning drinks optics rack had a secure heavy metal base plate with 2 holes in the bottom! I wasn't going to use it, so it was donated.

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For a spine, I used a  1.5" x 2" piece of wood, 105cm long. 
To secure it onto the base plate, I used 2x 4" long wood screws and a dab of PVA glue for good measure.
A quick check and it stood up perfectly! 

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Next, I took my front board and mounted it to the spine with 3x 1" long wood screws and again, liberal amounts of PVA glue.
I then painted it black.

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Now the slightly tricky part of how to hold each pair of sunglasses. I used steel wire similar to, but slightly thicker than coat hanger wire. I cut each piece to the same length and bent them into the right shape.

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I then mounted them onto the stand for each pair of sunglasses.
Here is the result!