How to make an industrial style handle!

Recently I built this tray and wanted to really set off the style with an industrial style handle.! I thought about using cabinet hardware. Most cabinet hardware installs with a screw from behind the handle which would be difficult to do with this project already assembled. I was also concerned with the weight of this tray. I wasn’t sure if cabinet hardware would be efficient. So, I decided the easiest solution was to make my own industrial style handle!

My dad did all of our plumbing repairs growing up so I was familiar with many of the supplies I would need for this project. However, I needed to decide on size!

I started at Home Depot and found the three main parts that I would need to make my

industrial style handle -2 to be exact:

4 floor flanges, black metal
4 elbows, black metal
2 1/2″ black nipples 6″ length (this is the small section of black pipe threaded on both ends and yes, I am having a hard time throwing this term around)

The supplies come in 2 finishes, galvanized and black metal. I wanted black metal because I didn’t want to have to paint the galvanized to make it darker. As luck would have it, there were not enough supplies at Home Depot to make a black metal assembly so I chose galvanized. Nor did Home Depot have the 1/2 nipple in 6″ inches. I settled and bought the 8″ nipples and and not my preferred length of 6″ Here is the galvanized set that I bought:

I thought maybe this larger set would work since the tray is super heavy but the proportions were just wrong and it just looked oversized and clunky. So off to Lowe’s I went. Eureka! They had all of the parts in black metal.