Tray Stand

by Mary Ann Goldberg

7 Materials

3 Hours

Easy

We eat in our rec room a lot and I have a lap table to use. It works great for eating but is a pain to store. It doesn't have a flat side to rest on so it either has to lean against something or lay flat. Either way, it has a big footprint.

Note: All PVC and fittings used are 3/8".

A couple weeks ago I made a laptop stand from PVC pipes. I wanted to use them for the TV tray stand, too, since the tools and parts were all out already. More cutting and sanding and washing. I then thought I came up with a design but it did not work, partly because I didn't have the correct fittings. Using what I had was a fail (see below). The center horizontal rails were not high enough to support the tray. Back to the drawing board.

Fail!

I switched some of the horizontal parts to vertical, and vice versa. After coming up with the right design, cutting the correct lengths and getting the correct fittings, the stand took shape.

Materials Used:

8 T Joints

4 End Caps (could use 4 more for the top ends)

4 ea. 12" PVC for vertical pipes

4 ea. 6" PVC for center horizontal pipes

8 ea. 2" PVC to connect to the T fittings for end caps (only 4 shown in pic)

After getting the design right, I decided to paint it. I disassembled it to do that.

I used 2 coats of Rustoleum Midnight satin spray paint. I highly recommend doing the assembly first and then painting. Just the extra little space the paint took up made the fit very, very tight. Let's just say assembly required a hammer.

After using the hammer to assemble these pipes, there were a few touch up areas that needed additional spray paint.

I did not glue any of the pipes together because they were painted before assembly and the fit was super tight. If you paint after assembling, I would recommend using a PVC primer and glue.