Homemade towel rail

[Christian McArdle]

As bought towel rails are so expensive, I'd quite like to make one. Is it as simple as soldering together some pipes and end feed fittings and getting the whole thing chromed? How much would it cost to get it chrome plated? How clean does it need to be? Does all excess solder have to be removed to get a clean covering? Are there issues with trying to balance the flow through the various pipes? What can be done about having a concealed bleed valve at the top?

I was thinking of a standard ladder design in 15mm copper pipe. It will probably be quite tall, with several sections of closely spaced pipes separated by gaps to slot the towels through.

i.e.

+------+ #------# #------# | | #------# #------# #------# | | #------# #------# #------# | |

# = end feed T

• = end feed elbow

Christian.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Copper is unlikely to be strong enough.

Which is why most rails are at least brass, probably steel, and best of all stainless steel.

You can get chromed steel pipe but of course it doesn't solder.

B & Q do reasonable stuff at about 100 quid.

Otherwise you are into steel, welding or at least brazing or silver soldering, plus gettung teh thing chromed at an electroplaters. I'd guess it wouild all take many days and cost around - 105quid?

[Nat]

snip asci art...

umm... are you sure it would be cheaper than B&Q warehouse? Chroming isnt cheap. Nat.

[OldScrawn]

I needed a small rad for a loo and used exactly this method and it works fine. Not expensive using screwfix end feeds in packs of 25. Quite strong enough for this but longer spans for towel rail would need to be 22mm for strength and even then a "full sized" one would be prone to kinking if grabbed. I wouldn't try to make a towel rail given the price of white or chrome ones.