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Brazilian Rosewood iPad Stand

Brazilian Rosewood iPad Stand

Brazilian Rosewood iPad Stand

I thought I'd try making my own iPad stand. I had a small piece of Brazilian rosewood that I've been saving for years to do something neat with.

I made a prototype out of scrap wood first, to make sure what I had in mind would work well, and it did!

The final piece (what you see here) was cut from a single block of Brazilian rosewood. I cut two inches off the end and glued it on top, near one end of the block. You can't actually see where the two pieces are joined, as the glue joint is so tight and the sanding I did later pretty much completely hides it.

I then made an angled cut, at 27 degrees, using the miter gauge on my bandsaw, through the two pieces. I made another identical cut about 1" closer to the end. At this point, I basically carved out the channel with more and more cuts. This was all done with my bandsaw.

Once the channel was cut, I made curved cuts on all of the right angles, by tracing various round objects (bottom of a compressed air can, also used the curve on my bandsaw's miter gauge) and then cutting the traces with the bandsaw.

Once that was done, I used my belt sander to start smoothing everything. There were certain places the belt sander couldn't reach, like between the curves and also into the channel, so I manually sanded those spots. For the channel, I actually cut another block of wood that slots perfectly into the channel, and then I put a piece of sand paper on the end of it so I could sand the channel smoothly too. I started at 80 grit and finished at 1600 grit. The sanding took the longest amount of time BY FAR (it always does).

When I was satisfied with the smoothness of the wood, I cleaned it with naphtha and applied a bunch of tung oil to finish it. I let it dry for about 10 minutes and then buffed it all off.

If you're going to make one yourself, keep in mind that the channel on mine is both wider and deeper than normal to accommodate the case I have on my iPad (a Belkin "Grip Vue").

I'm entering this photo in the 2010 San Diego County Fair Exhibition of Photography