With more and more of us work from home nowadays, having a clean and clutter free workspace is the first step to becoming more focused and more productive. Today, I'm going to show you how I used some scrap wood to make some quick and easy holders to mount your peripherals under the desk to create a minimalist workspace, to help increase your productivity
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MATERIALS
Walnut
step 1: design
I started by designing the C-channels I needed to hold both the thunderbolt dock and the SSD card reader. I wanted the two to be stacked on top of each other. I measured the size of the peripherals, and used Shapr3D on my iPad Pro to figure out the size I needed.
step 2: cut stock
I used the jointer to flatten one face and square up one edge. Then used my planer to bring the stock down to its final thickness, as called out in my original design. Then I used the table saw to rip the part to its final width.
step 3: cut dado
Following my own drawings, I measured and laid out the size of the dado that I need to cut into the stock. I swapped over to my dado blades to make the cut. I lined up the height of the teeth with the line for the depth of the dado. And then lined up the side of the teeth with one of my layout lines for the width of the dado.
I made one pass, then, without changing the fence, I rotated the stock to make a second pass. This ensures that the dado sits exactly in the center of the piece. Finally, I made a third pass to clear out the material leftover in the middle.
Lastly, I cut the two pieces to equal lengths.
step 4: stops in the back
To prevent both devices from sliding back when things are plugged in, I glued a couple of small pieces of wood to the holders. Two strips were glued inside the dado to prevent the thunderbolt dock from sliding back.
And two small 45-deg wedges were glued along the top lip to prevent the SSD card reader from sliding.
Step 5: adding bevels & thru holes
I used a 45-deg chamfer bit in my router table to add a bevel along the edges of the holder to give it a smaller profile and make it look better. Then I used a Forstner bit at my drill press to drill through one of the flanges in the block and drill partially through the opposite flange to create a recess for the head of the bolts to sit into.
Then I used a drill bit to make a thru-hole for the bolt to go through later on.
step 6: final assembly
I clamped the holders to the underside of my desk, and used a hole punch to set the position to drill. I drilled the holes and inserted the threaded inserts to the underside of my desk. And that's it!