LED Lit Upcycled Wine Rack With Recycled Pallet and Bottles

Intro: LED Lit Upcycled Wine Rack With Recycled Pallet and Bottles

Hi everyone, Michael from Elemental LED here.

This step by step tutorial will show how I put together an LED lit upcycled wine rack. This project was a lot of fun and very rewarding. I had been wanting to do a project that used recycled materials for a while now. If anyone has questions please leave a comment and I would be happy to answer it. Happy building!


Materials

2 - 3 ft. of High Density LED Light Strip
1x LED Strip Light DC Connector
1x 12w Plug-In Power Supply
A pallet
Wood stain of your Choice
Some sand paper

STEP 1: Get Your Hands on a Good Pallet

We go through pallets at work all the time. A lot of people shy away from upcycling pallets because they think they will bring dangerous chemicals to their environment. But it is actually really easy to find a good, clean, safe pallet by looking out for a couple of quick things. I look for two major things: the seal showing the initials HT and a pallet that looks like it has only seen use one time.

For full information about pallets and how they are prepared, how to choose one or where you can buy a brand new pallet - here is a great article.

STEP 2: Get the Part You Need

So for this project you will want the "End" or "Bottom" piece. If you look at the photo, you will see the section you are looking for. Just note that this is not the exact pallet I used.

STEP 3: Stain That Bad Boy Up, Then Weather It!

Once you have the section you want cut it out. Clean up any rough edges or unwanted marks with some sand paper and follow up by staining it the color of your choice.

Once dried, take some sand paper to different edges and take off some of the stain. Do this in areas you think would provide good accents (front, back, embeveled parts of the wood, etc).

I like to throw stain on the nails as well, then sand them up a bit too, looks nice!

STEP 4: Run the Strip, the Light Strip That Is...

It is best to drill holes ahead of time, but if you don't it doesn't matter too much.

Drill approximately a 1/2" hole in the back and wedge in your DC to Strip Connector. Add glue if you like, but it is not really needed. This way you will be able to just plug or unplug your power to the back.

Also drill a hole in the middle section as close to the bottom as you can to run the strip through. I drilled a hole in mine to show you guys, but my middle brace actually had the slightest gap underneath for the strip light.

Get any saw dust and crud cleaned out.

Connect your strip to the connector and peel off the adhesive of the strip to place it down.

STEP 5: Save Your Recycled Bottles, Now Is the Time to Use Them!

Grab some of your favorite bottles to display. The clear bottles will light up best. You could also use RGB strip instead to make the bottles change color.

For an example of RGB with bottles, check out my last Instructable with up-cycled beer bottles in an LED Chandelier!

You can also use this as a wine rack for new bottles of wine as well.


Remember: Different pallets will offer different benefits  A thinner (in width) piece of wood on the front will show bottle labels more. The base structure pieces that change the tray sections (where the bottles go) can change what size bottles will fit. These are the things I realized I will look out for when I make another.

Last thing - place the bottles in the shelf!

STEP 6: We Are Done! or Are We?

Yay! We now have a great unit to display recycled wine bottles, or new wine bottles that light up- enjoy!

Or wait!

You could also ditch the bottles and flip the rack upside down, add some hooks and use it as a wall shelf / sconce. There are so many things you can create out of pallets.

Cheers!

Comments

[mpmuebles]

Very good idea combining pallets with leds. thank you for sahring it

[jwest7788]

Very Cool!

My only concern:
Doesn't light degrade wine quality over time?
--> This is an added reason that wine is stored in a cellar, dark and cool.

[jwest7788]

Wait, Nevermind, haha "reuse empty bottles" my bad.

[anirudhkalbag]

I really liked this idea, especially the use of a pallet. Couldn't you just make a two-tiered bottle holder just as easily? I'm guessing you'd need some sort of extension to connect Strip A (bottom tier) to Strip B (top tier)?

Also, how much heat would the LED's generate (let's say in a 4-hour duty cycle)? I'd hate to put filled bottles of beverage in them only to find I've screwed up the flavor of my drink in the interest of vanity.

Thank you

[Elemental LED]

You could definitely build a multi tier, that would be excellent!! If you do, please send us some pictures, I love seeing how everyones projects are coming together.

Connecting from your first strip (A) to the second (B) is a brezze. We have plenty of simple user friendly connectors to do so. Here is one example, but you can always contact our customer service team to get some more information (http://www.elementalled.com/strip-to-strip-bending-extension.html).

As for the heat, you really shouldn't have to be to worried about that. Most of our strip does not run very hot at all, more warm really. Even so, our strips have a "Heat Sync" backing that disepates the heat it puts off on to the object it is attached to. Since you are placing it on a wood pallet that should absorb the heat quickly. So after that, you would still have to have the heat try and get through the thick glass on the bottle. So in short, I myself wouldn't worry about that, but it will be up to you.

So when selecting your strip you will have a lot of options. You could also look at our Sideview strip. You could place it just behind the bottles and have it shine upward, it would not be on the glass and it is a lower output (more for accenting).

Hope this all helps!!
Michael :)

[audreyobscura]

This rules! I love working with pallets.