Project: Laptop Stand

[GuardianStorm]

Project Laptop Stand [aka iDontCurve]

One of my friends from uni owns one of these:


And although I like the design of it, I figured it wouldn’t suit me that well because:

- It starts with a lower case 'I'
- The actual curve wouldn’t let me put much under it
- It cost £30

So I decided to build one from scratch, out of wood.

Designing It

The wood I have decided to use as ash; not the easiest of woods to work with, but it looks good, and we have a fair amount of it in the house. I set about designing it, using paper and pencil:


And SketchUp of course:


All it required was some angles, lengths and a little bit of trig

Building It

To build it I used a circular bench saw to cut the joints, and a chisel to finish them off. A fair amount of sanding happened, and then we get this:


I next sanded the whole thing down (again), and started varnishing, using 800 grit sand paper between each layer. This stand has a total of 3 layers, which had a final clean using a small piece of wire wool to remove any roughness.

I’m afraid I didn’t take any more in progress pictures, but I did make up for it with a lot of finishing pictures

Photographing It

First off, my photographing area:

Dinning room table + brothers two art boards (2xA2 - One black, one blue, I used their reverse sides)

Some shots of the stand on its own:



One of the joints:


And how I am stopping the laptop sliding off:


And one of the feet in the recess:


Some shots of the stand with laptop:




Questions and comments are welcome as always

[Raziekiel]

Wow, thats slick looking! Very nice job, I especially love the dimples for the feet.

[monkeyville]

Its very nice and well put together.

I have a quick question though. What do you use it for? Surely with it raised like that it becomes hard/impossible to use.

[GuardianStorm]

ah, no

the aim of this is to use a normal keyboard (and mouse) with it. the desk i have at uni doesnt have enough space to use a normal keyboard as well as the laptop, and although i like the laptop keyboard, for gaming it sucks, it cant press more that 3 keys at the same time.

[davidbacsik]

I love it. Looks great. Just a question, but do you see any problems with the dimples and other laptops? What made you go with the dimples. Would pegs not have been more futureproof?

[itsjustacompaq]

it looks great. the first thing i thought when i saw it though was: "it needs LED's under it"

[Javerh]

If the sliding became a problem with other laptops, he could just buy small rubbery friction-pads. They work to keep my alu laptop-stand (which isn't as neat as this one) in position.

[Monkeyboy]

very nice. how much weight do you think it could hold?

nice background by the way. artist?

[GuardianStorm]

thanks everyone

@itsjustacompaq: I knew i forgot something

@Javerh: Rubber pads were my thought too, only i hope not to change laptop for quite a while

@Monkeyboy: I don't know! i would guess at around/more than 10Kg, the laptop is only 2kg though. The artist is Jolly Jack His site

[Jipa]

Nice wood work there! Dunno how practical those things are 'cause I don't use laptops stationary..