Curvy Plywood Laptop Stand ... With Keyboard Storage!

Plywood is often thought of as just a construction material. It's strong, dimensionally stable, relatively easy to cut through and shape, etc. But its composition can actually be quite beautiful if you know where to look. The plies themselves can become an attractive point of interest, and if you "re-arrange" the wood properly you could be left with a real gem.

In our case, we chose to create a laptop stand that would also have a compartment for storing a full size keyboard when it isn't in use. The large surface area of the stand is ideal for a plywood project since it offers a lot of room to show the different plies. Additionally, the curved aspects of the stand are something pretty easy to achieve with this material since it really just ends up being a matter of getting it done perfectly one time and then just setting yourself for repeat cuts of the same thing.

This particular stand measures 17" wide, 11" deep and 5" high at it highest point. The opening at the front is 2" high which is plenty to pass the keyboard through.

As far as materials go, you'll need:

• a sheet of plywood (we used an approximately 3' by 4' piece 0.75" thick)
• a glue stick or spray adhesive
• plenty of wood glue
• double sided carpeting tape
• wood varnish
• wood stain (or you can keep the original plywood colours)
• you'll also need something to make the template out of, and a good choice is fiber board (we used a 12" by 20" piece that is 0.25" thick)
• wood filler (note you can also make your own with fine saw dust, wood glue and a bit of water)

For tools you'll need:

• either a jigsaw or scrollsaw to cut the parts out
• a router and a flush trim bit (with the bearing ring at the tip) to shape them
• a 1/8" router roundover bit
• sandpaper (we used 60, 80, 120 and 220 grit)
• sanding blocks and/or sponges
• orbital sander
• spring clamps
• plenty of long clamps (with at least four that are as long as your shelf's final width
• drill and 5/64" wood drill bit
• 1" wood screws
• If you have access to a rotary sander or sanding attachments for a drill that will also be extremely useful and will save you a lot of time.

Safety gear: You'll definitely want some ear and eye protection as well as a good dust mask. The steps involving sanding and (especially) routing will kick up a ton of sawdust and don't want any of that getting inside you.

The template is the most critical part, so you'll want to make sure you spend a lot of time getting all the lines perfect, sanding down all rough edges, etc. It will be used in upcoming steps to trace all the cutouts and as a guide for the router to follow and shape the individual pieces, so any imperfection left at this point is likely to be repeated on all the pieces.

Start by sketching out or printing a pre-existing template. We drew ours on paper, basing all the measurements on the size of a laptop and its separate keyboard, and ensuring there was enough room in the front gap to be able to slide the keyboard in and out easily. We experimented with a couple of designs, got feedback from a few readers and in the end opted to go for the more rounded look.

Once the sketch was complete it was just cut out and glued to the fiber board using a glue stick. The board was then cut with a jigsaw about 1/8" away from the lines, and finetuned with sandpaper, sanding blocks and a rotary sanding attachment used on a drill press.

This part is relatively simple and straight forward, and you don't need to be very accurate with it as the final shaping will be taken care of in the next step. The only thing to do here is to trace the template on to the plywood as many times as necessary, group the tracings as much as possible to ensure there is little waste in between the cuts, and then use a jigsaw to cut all the pieces out. In our case, a shelf that needed to be 17" inches wide called for 22.6 pieces of 0.75" thick material, so 23 (plus a few extras just in case) were drawn and cut.

When cutting, ensure you work about 1/8" outside of the line instead of right on it, and you'll take care of that last bit with a router later on. At the same time, keep in mind that you don't want to leave too much material outside of the line, because the more you leave (e.g. 1/4" instead of 1/8"), the more the router will have to chew through and it will a bit more challenging to hold on to and control.

This is where all the final shaping takes place. The idea is fairly straight forward: you'll basically be placing each one of the rough plywood pieces you cut previously onto the template, and then use the router with a flush trim bit to follow along the outer edges of the pattern and give the plywood pieces the perfect edges.

When it comes to using the router, you can either have it attached to the underside of a routing table with the cutting bit sticking out of a hole and then guide your piece against that bit, or have the piece attached to a firm surface, hold the router on top of the piece, and guide it along yourself. For this project the second approach is much safer as you end up keeping your fingers far away from the cutting edge. The downside to it, though, is that you have to ensure your template is very well attached to a solid surface, and the rough pieces you're cutting are firmly attached to the template. It also has to be something that's relatively easy to repeat often.

Attaching the template to a firm base (basically a scrap piece of plywood about 16" wide by 10" long) was pretty simple. Several holes we pre-drilled and counter sunk through the template, and it was then screwed down to the scrap piece of plywood. Because our drill bit had the screw that attaches the bearing to the bit stick out on top, we had to also carve out a channel in the base that followed along the outer rim of the template so that the trim bit could travel freely and not bottom out.

Attaching the rough pieces to the template was then done in two different ways:

1. For the pieces that would end up on the outer edges of the shelf, double sided carpeting tape was used to affix the rough piece to the template. The tape is pretty strong but you should use plenty of it to ensure zero movement. You'll also need to remove the used tape and put down new strips when you're done with one piece and move on to the next.
2. For all the middle pieces, a faster method was used. It left holes in the parts, but since they would be in the middle of the shelf the holes would not be seen in the final product. Five holes were drilled through the template with a 5/64" wood drill bit (basically something narrower than the screws you'll use) and they were then used to mark the rough pieces. The same holes were then drilled through the rough pieces. Once the template was attached to the base material, the individual rough pieces would screwed down to the template, ensuring they were completely flush so the router could pass over them.

With the attachment process figured out, it's time to start routing. One by one, attach the rough cut pieces to your template, route out the edges, remove the extra material, attach the next one, rinse and repeat.

Glueing the pieces is a lengthy but easy process, and depends largely on how many clamps you have access to. It's also important to note that the pieces do slide around a bit when clamping them (because of the glue), so it's easier to keep them aligned with each other if only a few are glued up at a time. Note you can also mitigate this problem somewhat by sprinkling salt on a glued surface to provide more friction.

In our case, the pieces were first glued up in pairs (using simple spring clamps), then pairs were glued to each other, then groups of four, etc. Doing it this way also had the extra advantage of making the sanding process easier, especially for the inner surfaces. They are much easier to access with sanding blocks when they are relatively narrow. When glueing them up, add enough glue to ensure a good squeeze out when they are clamped, and ensure they are perfectly aligned (which should be easy since the router helped ensure they are identical).

As the pieces were glued up together, it was also a good time to begin the inevitable patch work. There are bound to be small pieces of individual wood plies that break and fall off during the preceding cutting and routing, so once you have a few pieces glued up together you can start filling in those voids. You can either use store bought wood filler for this, or make your own by mixing fine saw dust (e.g. as collected by an orbital sander) with a bit of wood glue and water. Once you've patched the gaps and let them dry, they can be sanded down along with the rest of the piece.

The final glueup is the most rewarding, as at this point you're down to just two or three sub-parts left to be attached to each other. Like before, add enough glue to ensure there's a good squeeze out when they are clamped and then use the bar clamps to hold it all together. Ensure the pieces are perfectly aligned, and if you find they slide around too much when putting the clamps on then you can also sprinkle some salt on the glue to provide the surfaces with more "grab".

Once everything is glued up you're ready to round over the edges (either by sanding or using a roundover bit with your router), handle any last minute wood filler patches, and take care of final sanding (we went all the way up 120 grit with a random orbital sander). Sanding the inside of the shelf will be challenging at this point because of low accessibility, which is why it is best to sand those areas while the individual pieces are still being glued up in twos and fours.

When all sanding is complete, it's time for any stain you pick (or none if you prefer the original plywood colors) and some varnish. You'll definitely want to protect the shelf against stains, spills, etc so varnishing is an excellent idea. We applied three coats of a water based varnish and sanded with 220 grit sandpaper in between coats.

And voila, you've got a beautiful and functional laptop shelf. We hope you've enjoyed this article, and please do let us know if you have any questions or feedback about it.

You can also visit us either at our website (www.offshootcreations.ca) or on facebook (https://www.facebook.com/Offshoot-Creations-104830557697232)