Plywood magazine rack

Hello,
this is my first Instructable.

Some months ago I bought a cheap newspaper rack made of a wood stick frame and cotton fabric (see photo below). After a while, the thin wood frame tended to bend under the heavy load of magazines. In addition the papers slipped down in the bottom of the large container and formed a stack. I was not able to find a suitable rack on the market. Therefore, I started to design a customized rack. My first idea was to have it on wheels in order to easily move it. The second point was to organize it in separate spaces in order to avoid that magazines became a messy stack of paper.

Before starting collect the following materials and tools

- Plywood as raw material (about 1 square meter) (thickness between 0.5 and 2 cm)
I used 0.5 cm, but thicker 1 cm would be optimal
- White paper (squared is better), square, meter, and pencil to design
- Calculator
- Modelling saw with thin blade
- Small hammer
- Small nails
- Wood glue
- Elastic bands
- Heavy objects to be used as a press
- 4 Pivotable wheels

Step 1 Design

Design is a mix of functions and shape.

1) First the functions. This rack is organised in parallel spaces for magazines, books, and other objects, such us remote controllers. The magazines are ordered in almost vertical position, so that the rack has a small footprint and the papers do not form a stack. The ordering spaces are differently sized, so they can accomodate objects and papers of different size. Morevoer, the different papers can be grouped in separate spaces. Finally the pivotable wheels make it easy to move the rack in the room.

2) Shape. I wanted to build an nice and original object, not copying the market products. Firstly, I choose an inclined position for the magazine separators to obtain a dynamic look. Secondly, the idea of having different sized spaces inspired me a structure larger at the base and smaller on top. Finally, I rounded all the borders, having in mind a dolphin flipper for the object silhouette. The top border of the separators was shaped as sea waves. This is my version but the the basic structure can be easily customized in a different styles just changing the border shape.

I designed a plan of the side panel in 1:2 scale using square and meter. This was helpful to trace the rounded border onto the raw plywood board and to determine the exact position of the panels in the assembling steps. The dimensions of the other panels (bottom and separators) were simply calculated and then traced on the plywood without a preliminary scale plan. The more artistic parts and the rounded borders were designed by hand.

Comments

[tink1272]

Awesome! I have been looking for something like this, and I find nothing! This is perfect. Thanks!

[PKM]

This is good work for a first Instructable. The design is nice, I'd be a little concerned about it tipping backwards with a heavy load due to the tilt, but it looks pretty good (and adaptable, so you could use it for purposes other than magazines, which is always a good thing).

[isacco]

Dear PKM, thank you for your appreciation of my work. I reply about possible stability problems. This rack does not fall backwards when loaded and even pushed at its top end. In the first picture of step assembling you can note that the base panel extends backwards beyond the last separator. Therefore, the gravity centre keeps inside the wheel footprint. In addition, the wheels add stability because, when the rack is pushed backwards, it easily moves instead of tilting. Isacco

[PKM]

Fair enough, looks like you're ahead of me :)

[jaysbob]

it actually looks like most of the load is still distributed over the base though even with the sweeping curve. I doubt it would be too much of a problem.

[jaysbob]

oh and nice first Instructable!!

[joejoerowley]

Very Cool! Looks Great! Thanks Joe

[LinuxH4x0r]

Nice! Very simple yet functional

[=SMART=]

Very nice first instructable!, good design too, you could use this to store load of other things too

[Brennn10]

Fantastic! You do not know how many magazines my mom throws out after they sit for a few days. This is a perfect summer project!