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In this guide I show you how I made my Copper Pipe Wine Rack. It's made using standard 15mm copper plumbing pipe, it is pretty easy to pick up where ever you are in the world. The whole build takes about a day to make, and might be quicker if you use power tools.

For this build you will need;

FREE PLANS AND CUTTING GUIDE.

Step 1: Cut Pipe

First step was to cut the pipe all down to the sizes. There are 2 different sizes needed;

20 x 9.5cm Long (3.75inch)
34 x 4.5cm Long (1.75inch)
2 x 7.5cm Long (2.95inch)

I used a pipe cutter for this. It works really well, gives you a nice clean cut with a small chamfer on the ends to help it fit into the connectors. The only trouble is it took ages, literally ages. About 2/3 hours to make all the cuts. If you can a band saw, or a metal cutting saw it might be a bit quicker. But not sure the cuts would be as clean as with a pipe cutter.

Step 2: Prepare Parts

Once I had finished cutting all the parts, I laid out all the parts and fittings. Including all the poles listed in step above, and then all the connectors.

20 x 90 Degree Elbow Joints
24 x T Fittings

Then I did a dry fit to make sure everything was cut correct size, and was not missing any parts. As it turned out I was 4 T fittings short, so had to run out and buy more. Make sure to head over to my website to download the FREE PLANS with a complete cutting and parts list.

Step 3: Glue Up

Once I was happy everything fit nicely, I started the glue up. I used Gorilla Original Glue. Over the different copper pipe projects I've tried this has worked the best. I find soldering holds the best, but takes too long and requires quite a bit of work to clean up the copper pipes. I have also experimented with super glue (CA Glue) which didn't hold very well.

However this glue works by dampening the ends of the copper pipe, then putting the glue on. The glue foams up and expands to fill the caps around the pipe to ensure a tight bond. It also gives you about 15/20mins before it sets, this meant I had enough time to get it all fitted together.

I made sure to wear some gloves to stop the glue from getting on my hands, it's pretty nasty stuff.

It takes around 25/30mins to cure, and as I mentioned it foams up and expands as you can see in the photo. This mean that once it was cured it takes quite a bit of work to remove the excess. I went about it with my fingers, a sharp knife and a file. I needed to be very careful to avoid scratching up the copper pipe.

Step 4: Brasso

Once all the pipe work was cleaned up I went over quickly with some wire wool to prepare it for finishing. Some of the copper pipe was brand new and nice and clean, the rest I had left over from another project and was a few months old so had quite a bit of oxidation on it.

I used some Brasso over the whole thing to clean it up and give it a nice clean finish.