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Bosch projects you can build yourself
Coat hanger fruit bowl
As we all know, food is much more inviting if it is presented attractively. And this also applies to fruit. So why not present your vitamin supply in a really extravagant design? Our designer fruit bowl can be used as a stage on which you can showcase your bananas, oranges and pears.
You can buy the eight coat hangers ready-made or you can cut them to size yourself.
The following assembly instructions apply to 8-mm-thick medium-density fibreboard (MDF). Simply adapt the list of materials accordingly if you opt for other materials or thicknesses.
Buy eight wooden coat hangers and remove the hooks. These hangers will serve as the bowl's ribs.
Observe the following if you are working with a blank: we have given generous measurements for it, so that it can always be securely clamped when you cut out the ribs. Position the ribs centrally and not too close together on the blank because a few millimetres of material are always lost when cutting with a saw.
What is special about our fruit bowl is that the ribs are fitted using threaded bolts and spacers: the ribs are strung on a chain like pearls, separated by pieces of aluminium tube and secured using four nuts at the ends of the bolts.
Instructions
The ribs: transferring the hanger shape onto MDF
If you were not able to get hold of eight coat hangers, you still need at least one to act as a template. You then transfer its shape eight times on top of each other onto our 8-mm MDF blank. Refer to the specifications in the drawing if you need help with this.
Marking and drilling the holes
Use a pencil and ruler to mark on each rib the positions of the two holes (see drawing) through which you will later feed the threaded bolts. When drilling the holes with the drill and 10-mm wood drill bit, you should place a piece of scrap wood underneath as a buffer block that you can drill into.
Sawing out the ribs
It is best to use a jigsaw with a curve-cutting saw blade to do this. Here it is important to ensure that the board is always firmly clamped to the work bench using screw clamps. Reclamp the board as soon as the cutting line is too far away from the fixing position. Otherwise, the leverage action will be too great and the cutting accuracy will suffer.
Sanding / Surface treatment
First chamfer the edges of the MDF ribs with sanding paper with a grit of 150 at a 45° angle to create a small bevel. Sand the visible surfaces using your sander and sanding paper with a grit of 240.
When applying the primer, first read the manufacturer's safety and handling instructions thoroughly. You should cover your work surface carefully with film or old newspaper. Wear a face mask, protective goggles and gloves when working.
Apply the priming filler with a roller or with a spray gun. Then allow it to dry completely. Use the spray gun in cross-shaped strokes, in order to guarantee that the paint is applied evenly. To ensure that the lightweight parts are not blown away by the airflow of the spray gun, it is best to fix them with small pieces of double-sided tape.
MDF tips:
MDF surfaces are highly absorbent. You should prime them with undercoat. You may need to pay particular attention to the edges (i.e. apply several layers). You can skip the time-consuming task of sealing the absorbent surfaces with thick paint that fills bumps, scratches and pores in the boards by using MDF with a primer film. This MDF guarantees a perfect finish without fillers, at least on the surfaces. Finely sand the primed surfaces and edges; increase the grit of the sanding paper from 180 to 220 to 240.
Cutting the spacers to length
Use a pencil to mark 14 sections, each 20 mm in length, on the aluminium tube. Clamp the tube in the vice and cut the sections to length at an exact right angle. Be very accurate both when marking and when cutting to length.
Cutting the threaded bolt to length
To ensure that there are no unsightly protrusions at the ends of the threaded bolts and that the bolts do not end up too short, thereby preventing the nuts from gripping properly, we have specified a generous length of 235 mm for the blanks.
You can determine the exact length yourself during construction. To do this, screw two of the nuts onto the ends of the blanks. Put a rib followed by a spacer on the bolt, and repeat this for all ribs. Screw on the remaining two nuts after the last rib. Use a thin felt tip pen to mark the correct length of the threaded bolts right behind the last nut. Now you can dismantle everything and shorten the bolts in the vice.
Tip for removing the burr:
Sawing with a hacksaw produces a small burr, which not only poses a high risk of injury, it also makes it harder to screw on the nut. Before cutting, screw on the nut past the marked cutting line. After cutting, unscrew the nut. Doing this removes the burr cleanly.
Painting the bowl ribs
A wide range of paints is available, of various types and price categories. The main criteria in choosing a paint should be its workability, the technical equipment you have at home, and the surface quality and durability you require. Ask for advice at a specialist retail outlet and have a go at painting on a sample piece. A higher-quality alternative is, for example, polyurethane paint, which consists of two components and is applied with a spray gun. To make this paint, mix base paint and hardener according to the manufacturer's instructions and fill the spray gun with the mixture.
Using a test board, adjust the spray jet at the nozzle and the paint flow at the setting wheel. Depending on the direction you are spraying in, set the spray jet to horizontal or vertical for surfaces and tapered for edges.
Spray on the paint in even, parallel strokes that overlap by approximately four centimetres. Carefully put the parts to one side until the surfaces have dried completely.
Depending on the amount of space available, lay out the ribs on the work bench either individually or several at once on two square timbers positioned parallel to each other. This reduces the contact surfaces on the shaped parts, which is important when painting the edges and makes it easier to remove the parts after painting. However, there is also a risk here of the lightweight parts being blown away by the pressure from the spray gun. For this reason, fix them on the square timbers using small pieces of double-sided tape. Leave the surface to dry completely and do not turn the parts round until you are ready to paint the back side and the edges.
Assembling the bowl
Wait until everything is completely dry. Then fit the bowl ribs and the spacers on the threaded bolts.
The availability of the Bosch tools shown here may vary from country to country.