hi everybody! i'm mike mccrory and this is wood u make it. i have a friend that lives here with his wife and little baby and all the rest of the family lives in france so every
woodworking bench adjustable height, weekend they have video calls going back and forth. what they really need is a stand for their cell phone to make it easier to manage. i've got some leftover
cherry and a little thin piece of walnut that will be perfect for this. so, i'm going to make a stand for the cell phone that will turn and swivel and be adjustable. so, let's get started! i start by rough cutting the cherry into 10 inch lengths. that'll make it a lot easier to joint instead of jointing the whole 44 inch long piece that i have.
i joint the face a couple of times and that gives me a nice flat surface so that i can run it through the planer. i'm planing it down to about a one inch thickness. i'm gonna rip the cherry to be 3" since the cherry is 1" thick, then that will leave a hole that's one inch square in the center i'm going to join the pieces with a box joint,
so i'm marking the ends so that i have a reference mark and i'm labeling two of the pieces to be "a" and the other to pieces to be "b" so that represents the front front in the back and the two sides. i'm using the incra i-box jig for the box joint. you can use a homemade jig if you like but i really like the precision that this one offers.
the dado blade is set to be a half inch wide and when i finished the first "a" piece, i flip it over so that the reference point is pointing toward the center and it butts up against the reference mark on the "b" piece. this is so that i can set it up so that the two pieces will mate correctly. then i remove the "a" piece and continue cutting.
now, i've put the tower together -- just a dry fit to test it. it's pretty tight so it wasn't that easy to pull apart but i do want to tight fit, so that's good. now i'll glue it up i don't need to be too careful with the glue because i'm going to sand the entire outer surface after it's glued so
i'm applying it pretty liberally to make sure that i have a good bond. it all fits together very nicely so i'll clamp it up and let it sit overnight. while the box joints are gluing up i'll call that piece the tower and then there's a column that's going to extend up from inside the tower. so, while that's gluing up i've got
another glue-up to do. i've got this 3/8" inch thick piece of walnutsand this is going to be the holder for the cell phone. there's gonna be a little ledge down at the bottom to hold it. this is 3/8" thick and i need a way of attaching this to the column that's coming up. so, what i'm going to do is i'm going to cut this to be 6" by 6" square.
that should be sufficient for most cell phones and then i'm going to cut a strip and insert it down the middle so that it's perpendicular to the board. that will provide me with something i can use to attach to the column . i think it'll make more sense as you see me make it. i'll cut the 6 inch square piece first and now i'm cutting it down the middle
into two 3-inch pieces. and this piece is about two inches wide. this will go perpendicular to the stand and i've drawn a curve on it i'm going to cut out on the bandsaw. and then i'll drill a 1/4" hole at the back and this will be used to fasten it to the column. now we'll glue it all up.
so, i've measured the interior dimension and it's 1 1/16" so i'm going to create this rod that comes up the center and i'll cut it to be exactly one inch. that'll give us a 1/16" clearance which should be enough. now, i'm cutting a slot in the column. this will be the thickness of the walnut. i'm using a tenoning jig just for safety.
now i'll drill a quarter inch hole i've inserted a piece of walnut just to make sure that it drills nice and cleanly. now i'm passing the tower through the drum sander just to clean it all up. to allow for vertical height adjustment i'm drilling quarter inch holes 1 inch apart and there'll be about 7 or 8 holes here and that will allow with the help of
a pin to raise the cell phone up. i'm using the router to route a groove down the length of the column. this will be used in case you want to use a power cord and iim also going to put a power cord groove in the bottom of the base so i'm drilling a hole in the center inserting the router bit and then cutting across.
now i'm going to cut the base into a circle so i've got a little jig. the base is going to be nine inches in diameter so i've marked a line that's 4 1/2" from the center of the bolt and i'll cut through the base to the midpoint and then stop and clamp the base. now it's pretty simple to cut the circle just by rotating the piece.
and then i'll clean up the edge of the base on the belt center. then i'm using a 1/4" roundover bit on the top surface of the base. i'm using a 3-inch lazy susan bearing on the base and i'm just marking the holes here. while i have my roundover bit handy, i'm going to round over the corners of the tower. now i'm drilling 1/8" holes for the screws.
and i'm using a forstner bit to cut a larger hole in the base. that way i can bring the wiring up for the power. now i'm going to mount the bearing onto the top portion of the base. i'm drilling holes for the screws this portion actually screws into the underside of the top portion of the base. and now in the column i'm drilling a little hole for the pin.
and the pin that i've made i'm just sanding down the end to make it easy to insert. now before i put the bearing back on i'm going to just apply some mineral oil. it's easier to do it now than after it's all assembled. once the top portion of the bearing is screwed into the top piece, the bottom portion screws in from the underside of the bottom.
so, after all that i feel like this is just a little bit too tall partly because of the swivel portion of the base which adds about two-and-a-half inches but i think overall it's about four inches too high maybe so i'm going to just cut the bottom off. that'll make a nice pencil holder or something. the tower is mounted to the base simply
with some wood glue. i'll finish it up simply with some mineral oil. it'll be easy to maintain and it will look quite nice. so it's big enough that the phone can stand in the portrait mode or landscape. so i got to ask... would you make it? [theme music playing]