Handmade bathroom set (part 2 - Towel ring) ...

Okay onto part two, the towel ring, which is so we can hang a small hand towel some where near the sink.


In some ways this is a little more complicated than the towel rail, on account of the ring, well I say complicated what I mean is it takes a little care to get it all put together.


Here's the finished towel ring -

Once again made from Pine and stained using homemade stain

I've made a small diagram to show the three parts that make up the ring, it's pretty simple really, it consists of three parts, a wooden plate so it can be fixed to a wall, and so you can fix the ring bracket to something, the ring bracket, which is a small piece of wood with a hole in it, and of course the ring, and unlike the towel rail, this is made entirely of scrap bits of wood, so cost nothing apart from a little time to make it.

Here's the diagram - 

No measurements as size is up to you.

Once again I haven't included sizes as it's up to you, but as a reference here is how big each part I made is.

• Back Plate - 6 inches / 15cm long
• Ring bracket - 3 inches / 7.5cm long
• Ring - 8 inches / 20cm in diameter
• Ring thickness - 1.5 inches / 3cm

For the back plate I cut a piece of wood to the size I wanted, then marked out the centre, this is where I fixed the ring bracket, I also marked out a screw hole on each end, and drilled them out so that I could fix it straight to the wall once it was finished, again as with the towel rail I found it best to do all the staining and sanding before fixing it together.

Next for the ring bracket I cut another piece of wood, and made sure I had enough wood to make a hole for the ring to go through, and have enough to fix the bracket to the back plate, as the ring I made is about 3cm thick I made the bracket 7.5cm long, and before fixing using a Forstner bit (or hinge cutter as they are also know) I made a 30mm (3cm) hole through the bracket.


Forstner bit -

These can be picked up quite cheaply.

I used a couple of screws and fixed the ring bracket to the back plate from the side that will be against the wall, this way you can't see the fixings, I used the mark I made on the back plate to get the bracket in the centre.

Here's a picture of the back plate and the ring bracket, basically I made a 'T' shape, with a hole in one part.


Back plate and bracket -

A simple 'T' shape, easy to make.

 

The ring is probably the most complicated part of this, and to be honest I'm not sure I'm totally happy with it, or the way I went about fixing it to the bracket, but there you go.

I cut the ring out of a piece of scrap pine sheet, I marked the ring out on the wood using a compass, and then measured in about 3cm and made another mark, then I cut it out using the first mark (the larger of the two) once I'd done that I then cut out the centre using the smaller mark, this gave me the ring shape (which I forgot to take pictures of)

Then it was just matter of sanding the ring to round off the edges so the towels will slide of and on easily, and staining it the same colour as the other parts.

Now comes the tricky bit, how to get the ring onto the bracket ? this I did by cutting the ring at a point I chose at random, as it's circular it doesn't really have a top and bottom, then *very carefully* holding the ring on either side of where I'd cut it  pulled it apart very slowly, and only just enough so that I could slide it over the ring bracket and into the hole, this is probably not the best way to do this.

Then I glued it back together using wood glue, I also made a small peg joint just to make sure it won't come apart, but a good quality wood glue will be secure enough, I clamped it together to make sure I got a good secure join, as I used fairly thin wood this worked with out me breaking the ring into a couple of bits luckily, if the wood had been thicker I probably wouldn't have got away with it.

And that's about it, I used small plugs to fill the screw holes where it fixes to the wall.


Screw holes plugged -

All done and ready for a towel.

And here's the finished towel ring - 

Maybe could have done with a bit more sanding.

Okay that's the towel rail and the towel ring done, next up the toilet roll holder, which couldn't get any easier.

Thanks for reading.