The 10 Minute Laptop Stand

Step 5 Finished! Now enjoy your new laptop stand.

You should now have something similar to the simple stand shown below ready and waiting to host your precious laptop. True, it's not as nice as most of the commercial stands but this one has the benefit of being inexpensive and reusable if you should happen to be retrofitting an old home in the future. (The base is often used to join roof joists). Total cost is around $19 but if you opt for a standard steel finish you can save around $3-5 bucks.

Other options that would be nice to have.... an adjustable front foot to change the viewing angle, rubber stoppers where the dowels meet the laptop or perhaps angled back legs to mesh better with the bottom of a laptop. If you have any additional questions or have any suggestions to improve upon this design let me know. Enjoy!

Comments

[Dragonothe]

You could cut the dowels on an angle to fit the bottom of the laptop.

[looker1995]

Home Depot, as well as most hardware stores, offer non-skid rubber pads to prevent scratching things such as table tops or hardwood floors. You can get a variety of tan felt pads also, but I would use some of the black rubber type. They are round, self adhesive, and available in a variety of diameters. Sticking those on top of your dowels should solve any scratching issues.

[caityjay]

Yeah, I was thinking it was upside down the whole time XD I think at least putting a couple of rubber stoppers on the tops of the dowels would help with the denting issue, and definitely prevent any scratching of the case. Very cool; simplistic whilst managing to avoid tackiness. I like it.

[davis_brud]

Cool but would this work better upside down?

[kafene]

I think that's a better idea... the contact point might dent the Powerbook.

[johnbot]

Yeah, it works quite well upside down too! The only problem is that the front tip of the metal base wouldn't be resting on the front rubber stopper. This could be corrected by bending the first 2 inches of the metal base parallel with the table it's sitting on. That would make a pretty cool looking stand but then the metal bracket used for the base would not be reusable :) (not such a big deal for 11 dollars) Another method would be to forgo the front stopper and just apply some type of rubber to the very tip of the metal. I'll try it and post some pics soon!