Bike Wheel Pot Rack

I hate digging in my cabinets for my pots and pans.  I end up emptying the entire cabinet to find the one pan I need.  I've always wanted a pot rack.  But they're huge, and expensive.  This one which is beautiful, cost $310.  There's no way my cheap self is going to pay that much for any kind of storage solution, unless it's a storage shed or something. So while I was out browsing pinterest, I saw a pot rack made out of an old bicycle wheel, well.  I just had to make one.

My dad had loaned me an old rusty bicycle wheel for my geometry kids' pi day last year, so I had one in the garage.  The hardest part of this whole endeavor was getting the tire and tube off the wheel.  It was, like everything my father hordes, old and cracked.  It was practically glued to the wheel.  I ended up cutting it off with a box cutter.  Carefully. Then I removed the axel and bolts that held it in place. I tried to remove the gears, but turns out they're welded on or something, so I left them on.  It adds interest anyway.

Next up was a trip to the hardware store.  Have a look at what came home with me.

I started out by fitting the long all thread onto the axel of the wheel.  I slid a washer onto each side of the axel and tightened down the nuts.

Next I located a joist in my ceiling, and drilled a hole to hold the hanger bolt. Make sure you drill directly into a joist!  You don't want your pot rack to fall on your head.  You'll know that you have gotten into the joist when you pull your drill out of the hole above your head and are blinded by not only dry wall dust, but sawdust as well.

Now I twisted the hanger bolt into the wood, pointy side in.  I had problems tightening the bolt, because there was nothing for a tool to use for purchase, so I went ahead and screwed on the coupling all the way to the end of the threading, and used an adjustable wrench to tighten it all the way into the ceiling, to ensure it wouldn't fall out.

Next I used my hacksaw to cut the all thread down to the appropriate length to keep me and my tall friends from bumping our heads on my pots. Now we put peg A into slot B, and we have ourselves a pot rack!

I used the S hooks to hang my pots from my new rack, and voila!  More cabinet storage!  Now I just need to figure out a way to sort the lids in the cabinet so they are also easy to get to. But that's another project.