Sofia took down the curtain tie downs on the window casings, which left a small hole in each. She also had a pair of new speakers that have been taking space on her desk that she thought would go well in exactly those positions, and commissioned me to make her a couple speaker stands. Looking at them in retrospect, they have a bit of a Star Trek enterprise look:
Each has a 5.5″ inset circular region, routed out about a 1/4″ deep. I stacked 4 or 5 old CD (things like Windows 95, and NT4.0 install disks that I didn’t care about) and then used a router bushing to trace the outside circular profile with a small upcut bit. Then, with a large plexiglass custom router base that I made (about 12″ x 12″) that didn’t sag into the hole I wanted to make, I then hogged out the interior using a big 1/2″ bit. The exterior circular profile of one base was cut by hand with a jigsaw, and then sanded. I then double stick taped a second rough cut piece, and used a router bit with a pair of tracing bushings on it, to cut a matching profile in a second piece of wood. I used the table saw table saw router table extension I’d made:
to trace the profile of one piece onto the other. Here’s a couple details of the joinery:
I notched slightly into the top so that I had a flat surface to join the wall flap to. I’d used scrap (maple?) from an old dresser we disassembled last year, and it had a slight warp to it. Routing out that 3/4″ groove (running it on my router table on some flat stock) gave a nice rectangular gluing surface. I also used screws, inset into the top about a 1/4″ inch, to physically join the two pieces together. I’m not sure the screws were required, since the glue joint seemed suprisingly strong, even without dove tails or other structural elements. To finish things off, I hammered in a couple of really snug dowels, and flush cut them. The dowel wood is clearly a different type, but I think the contrast looks really good.
Here’s the final configuration:
Unfortunately, neither Sofia nor I thought of measuring the wire that runs between the two speakers, and it’s not quite long enough. The final part of the project will be cutting that wire and soldiering in an extension, so the wire can be tucked away under the desk.
