How to Make What You Want, and a VR Headset
by AlexZhang in Workshop > Woodworking
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How to Make What You Want, and a VR Headset
This is a guide on how to make anything your heart desires. Whether you're new or experienced to woodworking this guide may help you start off on new ideas. For this guide I will be assuming you have some skill in woodworking. If you don't, don't worry there are many beginner guides on how to start.
Ideas
The first step of your project is an idea. Whether its a old dream you had or a new popup idea you just had you should make sure you love it. You should find that this object should be useful in some way. For me I found that I really liked the idea of google cardboard but it was too flimsy. I liked the idea of a cheap Virtual Reality headset that makes you go wow. So I decided that I would make a wooden VR headset.
Planning
Once you have you plan you should research your idea. Someone may have already made something similar and you can see how they did it. Have a plan for how you are going to make it. Plan out your dimensions, your tools and what you need to get. Try to find errors in your plan and see how you can make it. Make a blueprint to help you out. One tip is that the simpler your plans are the better your product would be. There is no point of extra complexity when something simple is just fine.
For my VR headset I just reused a broken down google cardboard. I took out the lenses, the magnet and the NFC tag.
Making
Slow and steady wins the race. There's no need to rush your project. Rushing causes mistakes and problems. Build it to the best of your abilities. Test out your plans on cheap wood. If you want you can even CNC it.
Many times people get discouraged by failure. They are afraid of losing money. But failure is actually a good thing. You get to learn from your mistakes for next time. And even if there is a mistake that does not ruin it. What really matters is how much love and effort you put into your idea.
To make the vr headset cut out the parts shown in the previous step. A note is that only one of the sides has a hole. The hole only goes halfway through. This houses the inner magnet. The
middle part and the bottom part both has 2 nose slots. Align the two nose holes together. To hold your phone in you have to trim 1/8th inch off the outer edges of the box. Sizing can be changed if so desired but what i used should fit a 5.5 inch phone like the samsung note series. A bit of wood can be used in the middle to hold your phone in place. If you had done it correctly it should be quite easy to glue together with a couple of clamps.
Finishing
Undoubtedly the finishing is the most important part of designing your product. It shows the amount of love and care you put into your product. A good hand finish really completes your product and can hide the errors you had once made. There are many ways to finish wood. The way I use is to sand the wood up from 100 grit to 200 grit going along the grain of the wood. Then putting varnish on it and polishing it up to 400grit. This part should consume most of your time. When sanding the varnish with 400 grit do not be afraid of going against the grain. A leather strap is then glued in to hold the phone in place.