Introduction: Laptop Stand

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Hey everyone! Since its summer, the inevitable pressure of feeling like I'm wasting all my free time overcame me, and as a result I made a new laptop stand! It's meant to accommodate my laptop over the receiver for my surround sound system, but feel free to adapt it to whatever you need from your stand.

Step 1: Materials

Before I bought anything, I decided to draw a general plan of what I wanted the stand to look like. I settled on a design that would hold my laptop and the center speaker above the receiver. Feel free to design something that fits your needs, but these materials are what I needed for my design. I got all these materials from my local hardware store (OSH, in my case):

  • 2 T-shaped PVC couplings
  • 4 PVC caps (2 not pictured)
  • 10 elbow PVC couplings
  • Roughly 8 feet of PVC
  • Spray paint-I chose a cool-looking matte black
  • A Dremel or some tool that can cut a lengthwise hole in a strip of PVC
  • A hacksaw/something to cut the PVC
  • A wooden board (not pictured)

OPTIONAL

  • PVC cement or something to secure the pieces in the couplings (not pictured)

Step 2: Cutting

This step is pretty self-explanatory, just make rough measurements of what you need the PVC to be and make the cuts. For the "shelf" I made using the wooden board, I wanted to make sure it was really sturdy so I routed a section of the two PVC sections that I wanted to hold the wooden board and notched the board (pictured above) so that the two would fit together like perpendicular puzzle pieces.

Step 3: Assembly and Testing

Now just fit the pieces in the couplings until you have a laptop stand! Kinda sounds like magic. Now put it in place and give it a test run. If you need to adjust any of the pieces, go ahead and do it now, because the stand is gonna become pretty permanent in the next step.

Step 4: Gluing and Spray Painting

While I was testing it, I realized that the PVC was wildly unstable and I didn't want my expensive laptop to come crashing down on my expensive receiver, so I glued the joints that didn't need to rotate. After that, I lightly sanded all the PVC to remove any lumps and to help the spray paint stick better, and I removed the stickers on the couplings to make everything look more professional. Then I sprayed 3 layers of paint until everything was adequately coated.

Step 5: Final Touches

And there you have it! Your very own laptop stand! I added a few felt bumpers on the bottom and where the laptop would sit. Feel free to leave comments about how you made yours unique or if I was unclear at any point in the Instructable. Let me know how your stands turn out!