Cell Phone Stand Prototype
After performing an inventory of my hardwood storage and surveying different gift ideas on the Internet, I decided to make cell phone stands for Christmas gifts for many family members and a good friend.
I started this project by making a prototype. I asked my Annie what she thought about it. She liked it! So the project is go…
For the two pieces that makes this stand I was going to use 1/4 inch thick pieces of hardwood and their width will be 2 7/8 inches. This thickness was an easy decision because I already had some sapele, maple, poplar and pine resawn and planed to this thickness, or close to it. A lot of what I needed was in my hardwood scrap pile. The sapele was leftover materials from my roll around tool chest project.
The long strip I decided to make 7 1/4 inches long.
The shorter strip I decided to cut to 4 3/4 inches long. Its first inch on which the cell phone would sit on is the same width of 2 7/8 inches. I would then cut 1/2 inches off from its two sides on my bandsaw, but would first cut 1/2 inches deep on its sides but 1 1/4 inches from one end. I did those cuts by setting the short piece on its sides against my crosscut sled's fence and setting a stop block at 1 1/4 inches to the far-side of the table saw blade's teeth. I checked the 1/2 height of my saw blade with a Whiteside 1/2 inch brass measuring bar.
Before making any cut I used trigonometry calculations to determine the angle I would get relative to the nightstand's surface: that angle is about 12 degrees. I figure that will work well enough.
For the two slots I drilled a single hole with a 1/4 inch diameter drill bit by fitting the router bit into the hole I drilled on my floor drill press. I completed routing the slots with an upcut 1/4 inch router bit on my takedown router table. I used the router fence to stabilize the routing of the slots in straight line.
Her Samsung Galaxy sat on this stand nicely. It will do.
I used my bench chisels to square off the two corners for the long strips wide slot.
I had previously made a bench hook for planing thin pieces of hardwood. I used this bench hook to plane the flat surfaces of these two pieces of hardwood and also mainly to fit the thickness of the short piece so it would slide into the wide slot easily, but snugly.
I carefully squared the routed round ends so the sides of the two pieces would be flush to each other for both parts.
I initially thought I would simply use dark brown paste wax for a finish coat on this project, but I did not like the result. After sanding the wax off, I used Danish Oil on my prototype. I liked its result much better. I can still apply coats of dark brown paste wax on top of the Danish Oil to liven up these stands as time passes.
After performing an inventory of my hardwood storage and surveying different gift ideas on the Internet, I decided to make cell phone stands for Christmas gifts for many family members and a good friend.
I started this project by making a prototype. I asked my Annie what she thought about it. She liked it! So the project is go…
For the two pieces that makes this stand I was going to use 1/4 inch thick pieces of hardwood and their width will be 2 7/8 inches. This thickness was an easy decision because I already had some sapele, maple, poplar and pine resawn and planed to this thickness, or close to it. A lot of what I needed was in my hardwood scrap pile. The sapele was leftover materials from my roll around tool chest project.
The long strip I decided to make 7 1/4 inches long.
The shorter strip I decided to cut to 4 3/4 inches long. Its first inch on which the cell phone would sit on is the same width of 2 7/8 inches. I would then cut 1/2 inches off from its two sides on my bandsaw, but would first cut 1/2 inches deep on its sides but 1 1/4 inches from one end. I did those cuts by setting the short piece on its sides against my crosscut sled's fence and setting a stop block at 1 1/4 inches to the far-side of the table saw blade's teeth. I checked the 1/2 height of my saw blade with a Whiteside 1/2 inch brass measuring bar.
Before making any cut I used trigonometry calculations to determine the angle I would get relative to the nightstand's surface: that angle is about 12 degrees. I figure that will work well enough.
For the two slots I drilled a single hole with a 1/4 inch diameter drill bit by fitting the router bit into the hole I drilled on my floor drill press. I completed routing the slots with an upcut 1/4 inch router bit on my takedown router table. I used the router fence to stabilize the routing of the slots in straight line.
Her Samsung Galaxy sat on this stand nicely. It will do.
I used my bench chisels to square off the two corners for the long strips wide slot.
I had previously made a bench hook for planing thin pieces of hardwood. I used this bench hook to plane the flat surfaces of these two pieces of hardwood and also mainly to fit the thickness of the short piece so it would slide into the wide slot easily, but snugly.
I carefully squared the routed round ends so the sides of the two pieces would be flush to each other for both parts.
I initially thought I would simply use dark brown paste wax for a finish coat on this project, but I did not like the result. After sanding the wax off, I used Danish Oil on my prototype. I liked its result much better. I can still apply coats of dark brown paste wax on top of the Danish Oil to liven up these stands as time passes.