Need ideas for Christmas presents

[Al Launier]

Tablet/phone stand.

Attachment 393873

Charlie, those are really neat. They are very appealing with the figured wood and don't require much material. Since I don't have a lathe I could use dowels instead, although they wouldn't be as attractive as your figured pieces.
Any chance you have dimensions & what angle did you use for the upright? Do the knobs on the end thread onto a threaded rod to tighten & hold the upright in positon?

[Charlie Hinton]

Here are some more pictures that show how the stands are constructed.
I patterned it after an adjustable aluminum stand my wife has had for several years.
The ones I made are infinitely adjustable for the tilt. The angle is held by friction generated by the knobs.
Some of them hold better than others.
I do not have a lathe, to make the knobs I cut a strip off a board and then cut that into pieces ~1.25" long.
Drilled a hole and installed the brass insert, it's very hard for me to install the insert straight so I needed a little extra length for the knobs.
Then I squared the bottom surface to the brass insert on the disc sander, I put a 1/4-20 screw through a piece of wood screwed the block down until a corner touched and used a flat metal ruler to transpose a line around the block and then sanded it by eye on the disc sander.
Eventually I embraced the irregularities of the knobs and my stress level went down considerably.
I knocked the corners off the blocks with the bandsaw, using all-tread I put the octagon on with a jam nut and the using a drill I spun it against the disc sander until it was somewhat cylindrical and rounded over the end.
After they were all done I paired them up and adjusted the length on the rounded ends as required to get each two to match. I sanded them to 320 using the drill and hand held sand paper.
There are two things of note about the hinge.
Make sure the dado for the all-thread is slightly undersized so you have to screw the all-thread in and then strip the threads, do this after you cut the pattern on the bandsaw so you only have to strip short sections. This makes the action of the hinge feel much better.
The other thing is to cut the dado so it is positioned so the thickness of the bottom wood 'bar' is just a little bit thicker than the stand material, otherwise the stand will sit on the center piece and it will rock.
I thought I would be able to productionize these but it really never happened for me.
Repetition was the only efficiency lift I got by building 20 at once.
My wife has claimed two, her mother has claimed two, her sister has claimed one, and I have given two away to friends.....I am running out of them and Christmas is still 3 months away.

[Al Launier]

Thanks Charlie, that was good of you to take the time to do this; I really appreciate your effort.

[Charlie Hinton]

There are some YouTube examples of the Roubo book stand that's pretty cool too.
Chad Stanton did you not to long ago.

[Keith Outten]

Chris,

These are a few more of the ornaments that I have been making since 2002. Several of the ornaments I have made were from clear acrylic which is difficult to produce a picture.
Ornament 0976.JPG

Ornament 0977.jpg

Ornament 0978.JPG

Ornament 0979.JPG

I'm pretty sure that I have other pictures that I have taken of my ornaments that I will share if I can find them. With exception of the snow sleigh I shared in a prior post most of my ornaments have been fairly plain simply because of the numbers I had to produce.

[Scott Snavely]

How about ladies' hand mirrors?

I did several of these a few years back.

Made a template for the body and another for the mirror pocket.

I don't have photos of both sides, but you can get the general idea from these:

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I got mirrors custom cut from a local glass shop, just took the template and told them the tolerances I wanted . . .

My wife and daughter still use theirs daily . . .

[Charlie Hinton]

The mirrors are cool.

[Jim Mackell]

I don't know about anyone else, but this thread is giving me some wonderful ideas for winter projects! Keep them coming..... Drunken cutting boards and earring racks currently top my list for various family members.

[Keith Outten]

FWIW the full size plans for the Snow Sleigh are available from the Vectric web site. I scaled them down to make ornaments from them but they would make very nice sleighs for decoration or possibly snow riding.

Vectric produces a monthly project for free, many are worthy of Christmas presents, ShopBot does something similar.

[Chris Fairbanks]

Thanks Keith for the pictures!

Chris,

These are a few more of the ornaments that I have been making since 2002. Several of the ornaments I have made were from clear acrylic which is difficult to produce a picture.
Ornament 0976.JPG

Ornament 0977.jpg

Ornament 0978.JPG





I'm pretty sure that I have other pictures that I have taken of my ornaments that I will share if I can find them. With exception of the snow sleigh I shared in a prior post most of my ornaments have been fairly plain simply because of the numbers I had t o produce.