HOW TO BUILD A $10 PLANS HOLDER

INTRODUCTION

Put together one model ship kit and you quickly tire of wrestling with those forty inch sheets of plans while you're trying to focus on detail work.

If you have a convenient wall, you can attach the plans there. MicroMark sells a, no doubt, very nice plan holder for forty bucks. It looks to be of very simple construction and I wanted to duplicate it as closely as practical.

Feeling cheap, I looked around my garage to see what might serve the purpose.

I wanted to be able to adjust the height and directional angle of the arm to which the plans are clipped. That meant tubing and some sort of set screw or thumb screw mechanism. A length of EMT (Electrical Metal Tubing) and a set-screw EMT coupler met the criteria.

The MicroMark original has a 36 inch upright and arm. I measured some plan sheets up to 40 inches. The design below will accomodate plans up to approximately 45 inches in width.

MATERIALS

one 3 inch C-clamp. (Pick a size that suits the depth of your worktable's top.) $3.00 1/2 inch EMT - 48 inches. $2.00 for a ten foot piece one 1/2 inch EMT set-screw coupler. $0.50 1/2 inch wooden dowel - 48 inches. $2.00 (Use a larger diameter dowel if you want a more rigid and stable arm; just be sure you have a drill bit in the same diameter.) one piece scrap 2x4 or wooden block - 3 inches long two roundhead machine screws, about 1 1/2 inches long four flat washers two hex nuts Faststeel epoxy putty, or equivalent wood glue

Be sure you use the type of coupler shown in the photo, and not the type which is a steel tube with a crimped circumference.