How To make a Towel Holder out of PVC Pipe.

[Tog Driver]

In this guide I will explain how I made a towel holder out of PVC Pipe.

You could just buy one, but I figured that's the most boring thing I could do.

 

 

What you will need:
1/2" PVC pipe. How ever long you want the hanger to be.
Two 1/2" PVC Slip Street Elbows.
Two 1/2" Threaded PVC Street elbows.
Two 3/4" x 1/2" Threaded PVC bushing.
Two 3/4" PVC Pipe caps, you will want ones that are flat on the end.

Spoiler

Putting it together:
Step 1: Take your piece of 1/2" PVC pipe and cut it to however long you want the hanger to be, leave about 1/2" (13mm) on either end for it to go into the elbows, I cut mine to 13" (about 33cm)

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Step 2: Take a Street Elbow and put the Threaded Street Elbow on with the threaded end at a 90° angle to the open end of the slip elbow.

 

Do this for both sets of elbows.
 

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Step 3: take the two elbows that you put together and screw the 3/4" Bushing onto the threaded end of the Street Elbow.
 

Do this for both sets.

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Step 3: Make a small hole in the center of both 3/4" Caps, I used a drill with a 1/8" drill bit for this, But you could use a nail and hammer it through the cap, just make sure you do it somewhere that the nail won't damage whatever you have the cap sitting on.

 

See the "How you could do this differently" section for a way that doesn't need any holes to be made.
 

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Step 4: Put the two assemblies onto the 1/2" pipe.

 

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Step 5: 

Mount one of the 3/4" Caps to where ever you want one end of the hanger to be, I screwed it to a cabinet using a #8 Pan head sheet metal screw*. You will need to measure how long your hanger is, and mount the other cap where ever it needs to be to fit the other end of the hanger, If what you are mounting it to is thin wood cabinets, try to mount it to an area that is stronger, I screwed it on where there is a shelf on the inside of the cabinet so that it screws into the wooden shelf and not just the thin cabinet wall.

 

See the "How you could do this differently" section for a way that doesn't need any holes to be made.

*Well, I think it was a #8 Pan head sheet metal screw, I just found them lying around.

 

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Step 6: Slide the ends of the 3/4" Bushings into the mounted caps, Elbow going up, and that is it!

 

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Warning:
The fit of the slip pieces is much tighter than I was expecting, so much so I'm not sure how I will get this off if I ever need to, one way I can think of would be to use a wrench to turn the 3/4x1/2 hex bushing to unscrew the threaded street elbow, once it would be apart you could take the rest apart from there, or you could cut the main 1/2" pipe off in the center, and then pull it out and slowly work the Slip Street elbow out of the Threaded Street Elbow.

 

You might not have this problem.

 

How you could do this differently:

If you don't want to drill any holes you can try using Poster Tack, Poster strips, maybe double sided tape. Really anything sticky enough to hold it.

 

The reason I made this with the elbows is so that the weight of the towel would keep the pieces held together. but the fit of the elbows was tight enough that I don't think it was necessary, You could just make it straight. instead of the Threaded Street Elbow and Slip Street Elbow you could use a normal 90° elbow just using a piece of 1/2" pipe going to a 1/2" Cap. Using this method so that the hanger is further away from the surface, you could make any kind of holder, Toilet Paper, Paper towel Etc.

[Energycore]

I've been missing a towel holder for weeks now.

 

I wonder if this is worth.

[Tog Driver]

48 minutes ago, Energycore said:

I've been missing a towel holder for weeks now.

 

I wonder if this is worth.

Yes it is, it was much more interesting than just buying one, you might try painting it, but I didn't know how paint would react with a potentially wet towel so I didn't.

If you want me to bounce some ideas off me please feel free to.