Guide: DIY Clearomizer & RDA/RBA Display Stand

      This is an extremely obvious idea that I finally went through with after thinking about it the other day. If you have started collecting tanks and rebuildable atomizers then you know how frustrating it can be getting them to stand upright. When you have a handful of atomizers laying around on your desk with juice inside of them and you knock one over its bound to leak juice onto your work surface, roll off the edge, or domino-effect your entire collection.

      One simple solution is to use a beauty ring from a clearomizer to provide a base. However, I find this to be just as accident prone, and decided to make and share my insanely easy (and cheap!) DIY stand for my rebuildables.

Here's what you will need:

• Wood - a foot of 2"x4" is plenty. (Whitewood a.k.a Spruce is really cheap, soft enough to sand manually but hard enough to withstand light dings and scratches. It also takes to staining really well so that's the type of wood I chose to work with for this first tutorial. Obviously you can use whatever kind you like). Pro Tip: Most hardware / lumber store have a section or bin of discounted "cull" lumber. This is for pieces of malformed, broken, or knotted wood that can't be used for building, but will serve our purpose just fine. I found a piece of whitewood that could make about 7 or 8 stands for only $1 and change.

**If you want to avoid using a table saw, I suggest looking for a scrap piece about 1 inch in height & 2 inches wide. The length should be determined by how many holes you want for your atomizers.

• Sandpaper - I used some medium-grit because that's what I had. The finer the sandpaper, the smoother your edge, but it will take longer.
• Power Drill 
• 1/4" Drill Bit - A standard "twist" style wood drill bit is perfect. If you have a "brad" point bit, this will save you a little bit of cleanup after your holes are drilled.

Optional:

• Table Saw - This is only necessary if you have a large amount of wood to trim. I started with a really long piece of wood and wanted mine to be relatively thin as well.
• Stain or Paint - This depends on how you want your stand to look when its done. If you want a nice, finished look that matches your furniture, use a similar stain. If you want to get creative you can use coats of spray paint and then gloss, paint designs on the stand, or whatever. The choice is yours! I used an oil based mahogany stain because that's what I had lying around.

1. First you want to cut down you piece of lumber to the size/shape you want the stand to be. Because I'm only using my stand for one row of 4 atomizers/tanks at a time, I made the piece 7" long. Taking the space between the atomizers into account this worked well because it gave me about an inch between the atomizers while they are sitting in the holes. You'll want to think about what size your atomizers are when you drill your holes in the next step.

 2. Next you want to drill your holes. A 1/4" drill bit works perfectly. What you'll have to do is drill down your hole and then work the bit around the sides to grind out just a little bit extra space. This keeps the holes snug but not too loose that they fall out if they get moved. There may be some stringy pieces hanging off of the edge that will requires some cleaning up.

For my four hole stand I used the measurements in the following picture. They are approximate and give you a little room to move so that the atomizers aren't on top of each other. Make sure you are happy with the holes you made before moving on.

3. Next you want to sand the top edges and the outside corners. I choose not to sand the bottom edges so that the corners were sharper and it gives the stand a more flush look with the surface it's resting on. The key to this part is not over sanding- you can always sand down further but once you do it you can't go back! You definitely want to take the time to make sure the edges are uniform, as well.

4. Now that the stand has been shaped, all that is left is to stain it or paint it if you wish. With staining you'll need to coat it and wipe it off with paper towel. One suggestion I have is to have something handy like a skinnier brush or something that you can get stain into the holes with, otherwise you'll have a nice dark outside and bright whitewood showing inside the holes. I just used a paper towel.

That's it! Make sure your stain or paint is completely dry before putting any of your RDAs or Tanks into your new stand... First of all you don't want to get nasty smelling stain near where you will be inhaling your vapor, secondly you definitely don't want to ruin your 501 connection!

Here's the finished product again.

Happy Vaping!