Last year I built a clothing rack out of galvanized pipe to use at Pennsic. It did OK and a friend asked me to build one for her. This is the Mark 2 – I plan to rebuild the original one to Mark 2 specs.
Here’s the finished rack. There is a shelf on top and a clothing bar immediately below it
The rack uses 1″ galvanized pipes and makes extensive use of unions to allow it to easily break down. Disassembled for storage, the parts look like this:
There are 6 pieces – 2 feet made of pressure-treated 2×4, two verticals made out of 5′ pieces of pipe, a bottom bar made from a 6′ pipe, and a top unit made from a 6′ pipe and the shelf.
There is a pipe flange attached to each leg, and when assembled the bottom joint looks like this:
The leg part includes the wooden board, a pipe flange (bolted to the wood with bolts and tee nuts), a close nipple, and one half of a union. The next section, part of the bottom cross-piece, contains the other half of the union, a close nipple, a tee (which attached to the cross-piece), another close nipple, and another half-union. On top of it is placed the vertical which has the other half-union and the pipe itself.
A similar joint is formed on top:
Again, from the bottom up, there is the vertical pipe topped in a half-union. On top of it is the top unit which has the other half-union, a close nipple, a tee (which holds the clothing bar), a 3″ nipple (to allow some space for clothes hangers), a flange and the top shelf. The shelf is again held on with bolts and tee nuts. In this version the shelf was a PVC board but that didn’t seem to work well – it’s very flexible and tee nuts don’t hold well in it. I plan to replace it with a wooden shelf.
Here is the rack with all pipes assembled:
The rack can be put together with one person, but is easier with an assistant. I meant to tighten the unions with a monkey wrench, but my friend put it together hand-tight and had no problems.
The galvanized metal feels unpleasant and can stain clothing. Home Depot sells split plastic covers meant for shower curtain rods (they are usually in the bath department somewhere):
I covered all galvanized pipe with them (the covers are meant for 3/4″ pipe, so the 1″ pipe requires at least 2 covers, rotated 180 degrees, to avoid a gap – more if the pipe is longer than the cover):
Hint on buying pipe: Home Depot sells pipe in 10′ lengths but if you want to have it cut and threaded to a smaller length, you must buy by the foot, which is expensive. Loews sells 4′, 5′, and 6′ pieces for much less.
