Garden bench drink holder
This is one of those projects that can be built in just 15 minutes, on a whim. Although similar holders can be found online in almost every Far East marketplace, my project competes in both price and delivery time. Additionally, it can be customized to fit any garden bench and accommodate preferred drink containers, such as cans, bottles, or travel mugs, making it a winner in this competition. The drink holder is built with galvanized steel banding and angle brackets, both of which are widely available at any hardware shop. It is held together with rivets and requires no finishing. It is dead simple and cheap but in a good way.
I reused some angle brackets that I had on hand for this project. Although their arms were not symmetrical, with one of them being shorter to fit a previous project, it turned out to be just what I needed for this drink holder. What a coincidence! I was able to save time on cutting and filing the sharp edges. I used a workpiece clamped in my SuperJaws to make a hook for the upper bracket, which was then precisely shaped with a hammer. Two banding strips were trimmed to size using snips, and by counting the number of loops within the starting and ending cut.
The only thing left to do was to apply rivets. I installed the correct nose piece and crimped both rivets with the steel band sandwiched in between 2 brackets. That way the project was finished and ready to serve its purpose. Both rivets interlock with the frame of the bench and thanks to that feature the drink holder clicks in place, remains secure and doesn’t move with the wind or when in use.
The lower part of the holder rests on the bench leg, which was my biggest concern about the plastic holders available online. Fortunately, this holder is supported at the bottom and does not swing back and forth, which is not acceptable in a drink holder design. It can accommodate bottles, cans, and probably some travel mugs too, making it a perfect fit for my needs. The holder’s weather-proof and anti-rusting properties are theoretically impressive, but even with all the materials used in the build being galvanized, aluminium, or stainless steel, there is still a 50-50 chance of rust and I know that from my own experience of using this particular banding and similar brackets. However, I have decided not to finish it with paint and to keep it cheap and rustic, just to see how it performs and ages.
