The Ultimate Magazine Rack

I just wanted to build a magazine rack absolutely not because I m an avid magazine reader anyway but lately I understood the importance of organizing stuffs. And also because DIY is fun.I mean how fun it would be to purchase a magazine rack from the store. This is a moderately easy project and not many things are actually needed to finish it up

1. PVC pipes ¾”

2. Elbow 90 degree hub*hub*hub connector ¾”

3. Tee connector ¾”

4. Wood lath/pallet

5. Plywood

6. Nuts and bolts and screws

7. Leds

8. Push button switches

9. Electrical wire

10. Para-cord strings

11. Eye pins

12. Glue

13. Acrylic and wood paints

14. 5 v adapter

15. Metal strips with holes

1. Jig saw/circular saw

2. Hack saw for cutting pvc pipes

3. Electric drill

4. C clamp

5. Measuring tape/ruler

6. Glue gun

7. Pliers

8. Soldering iron

I saw some magazine racks available in stores. Most are tilted backwards for easy viewing angle. I made this magazine rack out of pvc pipes which makes it easier for having such a structure

I cut the pvc pipes with a thin blade hack saw with below measurements

1. 30 inches * 2

2. 10 1/2 inches *3

3. 18 1/2 inches*2

4. 7 1/2 inches *2

I got some leftover wooden pallets and laths from the recent home improvement work. The smaller width pallets are used to make upper part of each rack. In this pic 1 , 3, 5 are such parts. I drilled holes with spacing of 1 inches on them. The lower part of each rack is actually made of three parts. The front pallet is shorter than the back part but equal to the middle part. This three parts are bolted together at two points. The back part is having holes in equal spacing of one inch. A,B,C are three stacks. I marked everything beforehand so that they are not misplaced

To screw the pallets to the PVC pipes I needed to makes holes into the PVC which is difficult. The cylindrical pipes generally have a tendency to roll over. Normally a v block is used to fix the pipes before drilling. But I don’t have that so instead I made holes by melting the plastic using a old soldering iron.

Caution: burning plastic releases huge amount of poisonous gases, so always work in a well ventilated room.

To make the mesh I used nylon strings wrapped around eye pins and the holes made in the pallets. For making the holes in the PVC for eye pins i again used my old soldering iron but made sure that i do not insert the tip all the way making the hole wider. The eye pins were pretty thin and needed small hole to fix them properly

I used a easier parallel circuit to lighten up the leds. The switches are installed in the top part along with the leds which also act as kinda table lamp

Leds connected in parallel circuit ha e a forward current. I used a 5V adapter to power up the circuit. I calculated the resistance through this site

http://www.hebeiltd.com.cn/?p=zz.led.resistor.calc...

For the book reader lamp I used a small wood block and drilled two holes in it and fix leds inside it. These leds got a separate switch. Everything is fixed and secured by soldering and using a glue gun thereafter. I wrapped a small cardboard piece around the book lamp to make it look nice. Then I painted it with yellow acrylic.

leds 3,4,5,6 are also parallely connected with a switch. These are placed in holes made in the wood.

Base Plate

The base plate is made of ½ inch plywood. The edges are smooth-en out by using a thin bladed jigsaw after marking with a coin on edges. The base plate is then screwed to the pipes. The length of the base plate is 24 inches

Magazine reader table

When I first started building the magazine rack I didn’t thought adding a reader table. This was a latter addition and for me a good one. I actually made the table out of Formica glued to a piece of cardboard. Two wooden blocks are fixed to the base . On the lateral side of the block holes are drilled. Through one hole on each side metal strips are fixed which are again fixed to the pipes. This way the base plate rotate 180 degrees. To restrict it to a proper position I used an Allen key which is pushed through the metal strip and the wooden blocks

1. The PVC pipes I cut are actually little longer because some part will go into the connectors
2. I drilled holes in the wooden pallet first and then mark the holes in the on the PVC pipes with a pencil
3. To fix the wood to the PVC pipe I screwed them up but when fixing wood to wood I used nut and bolts
4. Before soldering always tin the solder and de-oxidize the wires
5. Glue up every wire and leds to fix them in their place
6. I did not glued PVC pipes with connector because it would make it difficult to repair if there is wiring problem or transportation