Project Summary

This project will take you through a 10(ish) step process of creating a monitor stand with a resin layer in the middle. I’ve opted for a semi-opaque resin layer which is illuminated with LED’s. But you can experiment with other colours or even try a multi-coloured resin-river-table effect.

Why the project is needed

I’ve been meaning to get a new monitor stand for a while. The stack of drawers I have make the monitor too high and the old foot-rest I used was not big enough to hold the entire base of my monitor securely.

If you’re like me, there is no such thing as ‘too many LEDs’ in your computer setup. However my biggest gripe with LED strips is that you get patches of light due to poor light diffusion. I wanted a band of light. This project aims to create a resin LED diffuser that gives a perfect band of light instead of light and dark spots.

Nothing yet exists on the market that can achieve this kind of light diffusion. There are some LED strips like this LED strip band, but these cannot be bent in a way to emit light in the orientation that this monitor stand needs. You’ll understand why when you see how the LED strip is installed. 

How to use this guide

This project is a great beginner project. I know this because this is not only my first Instructable, but also my first time woodworking and using resin! Because it’s my first time working in a new medium, there are several mistakes along the way which I made so you don’t have to. I’ve listed the steps as you should do them to avoid making the mistakes I did and I’ve documented at the end with how I fixed mistakes in case you find yourself in a similar position. To make your project run smoother, I recommend reading each step and the relevant sections from the ‘Mistakes’ list before starting.

Throughout this Instructable, I use ⚠ for any health and safety precautions that I took. Working with power tools, wood and resin can have short- and long-term health impacts if you do not work safely. When in doubt, have a look on the manufacturer’s website for datasheets and safety guidelines.

For my monitor stand, I wanted something that would take up minimal space on my desk but allow for storage of my keyboard beneath it, so the dimensions account for the size that suited my needs. Feel free to adapt the design to your monitor stand and anything you want to store beneath. You will also see in the final pictures that the stand did not come out perfectly. Experimenting with the resin pigment concentration, position of the LEDs, LED brand, LEDs per inch and the thickness of the resin layer is where I would focus my energy if I was to start over.

The final comment is on tooling. As this is my first time working with wood and resin, I made use of whatever tools I had lying around. I recommend you do the same for the most part, only purchasing a new tool if there is no way to achieve the same result with what you have.

With all that out of the way, let’s start making this thing!

Summary of Steps:

• Step 1 – Sizing up the Wood
• Step 2 – Making the resin layer
• Step 3 – Installing the lights
• Step 4 – Trimming the top to size
• Step 5 – Gluing the top to the bottom
• Step 6 – Trimming the combined board
• Step 7 – Making the base
• Step 8 – Sanding
• Step 9 – Gluing the base to the top
• Step 10 – Finishing
• Finished Product Pictures
• Appendix A - Mistakes

Materials/Consumables

• Wood (I used European Oak)
• 290mm x 700mm x 17mm (11.5in x 27.5in x 5/8 in)
• 290mm x 700mm x 14mm (11.5in x 27.5in x 0.55in)
• 2x 150mm x 90mm x 10mm (6in x 3.5in x 3/8 in)
• 2x 600mm x 20mm x 10mm (23.5in x 6/8in x 3/8in) (Optional as we can also get this from the offcuts made during the project)
• Resin (Resin, Hardener, Colourant) (GlassCast 10 with white pigment)
• Fast-cure resin (Araldite)
• Wood Glue (Gorilla Wood Glue)
• Wood Screws
• Tung Oil (Or your preferred wood finish)
• LED Strips (e.g. Govee‎ ‎H615B) LED Lights)
• LED aluminium channel (V shaped aluminium profile with 15mm width)
• Sandpaper – 60, 80, 120, 180 grit + a 300+ grit/paper bag

Tools

These are the list of tools I used with optional model name/details.

• Measuring tape/ruler
• Hand Saw
• Tenon Saw
• Hand Plane
• Screwdriver/Impact Driver
• Chisels (Widths = 10mm and 20mm) (3/8in and 3/4in)
• Oscillating Multi Tool (DeWalt DCS355N-XJ)
• Sander (Mac Allister Detail Sander)
• Various empty containers (To mix the resin)
• Popsicle Sticks (To mix the resin)
• Soft-bristle paintbrush (To apply the resin)
• LED Strip Cutters/Electrically-insulated scissors
• Marking gauge
• Jigsaw
• Soft brush to wipe away sawdust
• Spirit Level
• Heat gun or blowtorch
• Clamps (F-Clamps)

Using a single piece of wood for a monitor stand is usually a bad idea because of the high probability of cupping and warping. However this won’t be an issue for us as the top and bottom panes of the top piece will be inversely oriented and there will be a nice thick resin layer in the middle to provide some rigidity. If you don't have access to sufficiently wide boards, you can use two planks and joint them together. There are several guides available online for how to do this in the best way to minimise warping.

For my monitor stand, I want the final piece to have at least 500mm (19.5in) space beneath the stand for my keyboard and a depth of 240mm (9.5in) to hold my monitor base. Because of this, I started with wood that was 700mm (27.5in) in length and 290mm (11.5in) in width. This will be cut down to a final size of 600mm width and 260mm depth (240mm depth for half of the top piece to allow for some extra light)

I’ve got two pieces of wood for the top piece:

• 290mm x 700mm x 17mm
• 290mm x 700mm x 14mm

As well as some offcuts that I used for the base.

• 2x 150mm x 90mm x 10mm
• 2x 600mm x 20mm x 10mm (I got this from the offcuts made during Step 4 and 6)

To mark up the boards, I used a pencil to mark which would be the front, the back, the top and the bottom. To reduce the risk of cupping, I arranged the boards so that any cupping would be 'reversed' by the other board.

Most resin projects will have you build a separate mould for the resin to prevent spillage onto the floor. To save myself some sanding and construction time, I opted for chiselling out a channel within the wood for the resin to be poured into. This created a host of problems which I had to fix later. If you have the capacity to make a separate mould so you can over-pour the resin and plane the board to the desired size, I would say ‘do that’. You can then either use the channel as I did or plane the bottom piece down to 7mm thickness and build a 5mm resin layer on top. Both options will prevent there being any gaps in the final product where the resin and top board do not sit flush with each other.

After chiselling out the channel, I used 60 grit sandpaper to remove some of the loose wood fibres.

The science of light diffusion is reasonably simple, and there are some very interesting scientific papers that investigate the optimal cavity size for layers of diffusion material to achieve a cleaner light scatter. If you are making a stand that is a different size to mine, have a look into what diffusion cavity will be suitable.

To make the diffusion cavity for this project, you’ll want to use a chisel, router or similar to carve out a channel that is 5mm deep and 50mm wide all around. The channel had a 10mm gap on the front/back side and a 30mm gap on the sides. This would act as the mould when the resin was poured and will be trimmed off in Step 6.

The chiselling technique that worked best for me was:

1. Start by chiselling two parallel lines along the direction of the grain with a distance of a chisel’s width between them
2. Working your way along the newly-created line, position the chisel 45 degrees from the vertical and perpendicular to the grain direction. Start hammering it into the wood, aiming for a depth of 5mm.
3. Once you reach the depth, lift the handle upwards to ‘push up’ the chip that you have just created
4. Knock out the chips by chiselling perpendicular to the lines you made (be careful of using too much force and causing the edges of the board to ‘chip out’.

To prep the resin, you can use water to see how much pigment will be needed. This works because the resin cures completely clear on its own, so any pigment you add will be the only colourant.

⚠ always wear gloves when handling resin, hardener or the pigment.

⚠ Resin often produces dangerous fumes when curing. The Glasscast manufacturer claims that it is stable, but to be completely safe, wear ventilation equipment that is rated for organic material when around uncured resin.

I found out that I needed about 8 drops of pigment for each 500ml of resin mixture. Mix the resin as per the manufacturer’s instructions. Mix this thoroughly. You’ll see in the pictures that the resin I poured was barely opaque, but the remaining resin in the container was very opaque. This was because I didn’t mix my resin properly before pouring and allowed the pigment to settle to the bottom. I also used a white container to mix the white resin which meant I could not see the consistency of the resin before it was too late. Next time I'll use a clear or coloured one.

Once the resin is prepped, ensure that your board is completely flat. The resin may look like it is cured after a few hours, but it will continue to slowly flow and even out for up to 24 hours (longer if you are using a longer-curing resin). If any resin spills in this process, wait for it to fully cure and then it will snap off quite easily with a chisel.

I would recommend using a digital spirit level if you have access to one. I used a regular one and it ended up being a fraction of a degree off. See the results in the pictures.

Depending on how you have mixed your resin, you might have some air bubbles in the mixture. You can remove these using a heat gun or a blowtorch. Check on the resin as it cures, popping any bubbles as required.

⚠ Wear heat-proof gloves if when handling an open flame and keep the flame well away from the wood. The heat from radiation will be sufficient to pop any bubbles.

I was inspired by the light bands that you can purchase online. The problem with those is that you can only create light perpendicular to the LED bulb. So to create the same effect with the resin light diffuser, I cut down some V shaped light channels and glued the LED strips so the light had a max intensity at 45° to the base. Not having a direct line of attack between the light and the resin will further reduce the ‘spotting’ that you usually get with LED lights.

To achieve this, you will need to cut a 20mm wide (3/4 in), 10mm (3/8 in) deep channel into the top layer. The location of the channel does not have to be perfect, but I made it so the centre of the channel was situated 40mm (1.5in) from where the edge of the monitor stand will be once I cut everything down.

I used my trusty chisel to accomplish this but a router will make quick work of the task too. You’ll see in the pictures I ended up running the channel through the back of the board so that the wires and heat can escape. I would recommend not doing this and instead carving out a channel in the resin for the wire to sit snugly in. See the images in the Appendix for a comparison of having a channel in the top board vs the bottom.

Next you will need to cut down the LED aluminium channels. If you can find some that are already small enough, get those. The only ones I could find were slightly too large so I ended up cutting them down so that two sides were 10mm wide (the width of the LED strips) and the length was enough to run along the 4 sides of the channel. An oscillating multi-tool makes quick work of this, but make sure you are using a metal-cutting blade.

Use some fast-cure epoxy to secure the LED channels to the board and then run the LED’s around on both sides of the aluminium channel (to maximise light).

When measuring out how to get the LED’s around the board, you’ll want to make sure that the wire is secure. I didn’t and ended up having to saw everything in half and start again because the connector broke. Depending on the density of your LED strip (LEDs per inch), you can opt for one layer of LEDs. Because these Govee lights were quite spread out, I used two layers.

It is also a good idea to test run your lights around the aluminium channels to ensure there are no pinch points located at the LEDs/electronic chips/anything that will break easily if there is pressure applied.

** Note that I ended up having to reinstall the lights due to a mistake in placing the wiring connectors. If you end up using the method I describe in the ‘Mistakes’ section, I would position the lights closer to the edge of the monitor stand. The band still lights up, but it is not as bright at it was when I used the method listed above.

⚠ When cutting LED strips, always ensure they are not plugged in and only cut along the connection areas between two adjacent strips with a pair of electrically resistant cutters.

If you want to have an extra bar at the back of the monitor stand for the light to travel up your wall as well as out, you will need to trim down the top board to its final size at this point.

I’ve estimated where my front will come to and then marked out a line 240mm (9.5in) parallel to it. This was about 250mm from the edge of the untrimmed board.

Using a jigsaw, I then cut down the length of the top board. I cut it close to the final dimensions and then used a hand plane to make everything square. Always work slowly when using power tools! When making this cut, I moved the jigsaw too fast and ended up with masive chip out that made the board too small. To remedy, I had to glue on a separate piece of wood to get the top board back to 240mm.

⚠ I would strongly recommend wearing safety glasses when using hand planes or chisels on resin. It can splinter quite easily and the shards can get thrown up towards your face. It is safe to touch as the resin is now completely cured, but getting a piece in your eye will not be pleasant.

Check the alignment of the top and bottom boards to ensure that the amount of ‘bar’ sticking out the back is sufficient for you. Depending on the position of the LEDs and the opacity of your resin, you may want to have a larger/smaller bar.

⚠ Always wear safety glasses, noise-reducing ear protection and use ventilation equipment when producing fine particles of resin or wood.

Next you need to join the top and bottom pieces. Because of my mistake in Step 3 with the LED strip wires, I ended up trialling both fast curing (Araldite) and slow curing (GlassCast) resin. Both were perfectly suitable at securing the two boards together but the araldite is a little easier to apply as it is very viscous and won’t spill out of the sides as the slow-curing resin does. You can’t use wood glue at this point because of the poor adhesion between resin and wood (remember that we will be trimming out the wooden areas that are around outside of the resin layer)

Before you resin everything together, you’ll want to mark out roughly where you are going to make the cuts for the final stand. I ended up marking out the maximum and minimum bounds by marking the edge of the LED strip channel on the top board and the edge of the resin on the bottom board. As long as I cut between both of those, I am sure to have a full resin layer without cutting into the LEDs.

I made a total of 100ml of resin to do this (Only 50ml or so was needed but better to overfill than underfill). Let it cure for a few hours before you pour it on (or make another mould as per Step 2).

After the resin has fully cured, you’re now ready to trim down the combined board to size. I would recommend cutting it to your final size + a few mm.

For mine, I trimmed to 265mm x 605 mm. This will allow you to make a quick rough cut with the jigsaw then neaten it up with a hand plane or sandpaper. If you used a mould for Step 2, or planed everything to the same height, you won't have the issue I had which was gaps between the top board and the resin.

Note – hand planes are suitable for cutting resin, but you will need to ensure the plane is very sharp and adjusted to take a very thin shaving (otherwise the resin will chip out)

I also took this time to use the hand plane to soften the edges. As the boards are quite thick, a large, shallow bevel gives the illusion (from the front) of a much thinner board. I also added some chamfers to the side corners. Nothing was measured here, but I went very slowly with each shaving to remove as little material as possible whilst achieving the look I wanted.

Now that the top board of the stand is mostly completed, it is time to make the legs. For this, I’m using:

2x 150mm x 90mm x 10mm

2x 580mm x 20mm x 10mm (I got this from the offcuts made when cutting the board down in Step 6)

The base is reasonably minimal and if you have better offcuts, you can probably make do without the long pieces. Make sure you square up the offcuts as best as possible before proceeding. The reason why I am using two supporting braces is because wood joints are weakest when they involve gluing the end grain. Therefore, I’m using screws to secure the end grain portions and using wood glue to make a face-grain joint.

It is also important that the grain direction of the legs is completely vertical. Otherwise you risk the legs snapping under the weight of the monitor stand.

To make the base, first mark out where you are going to make the rabbets (grooves) and measure the correct depth. Using a tenon saw, saw down to the appropriate length. Then use a chisel to slowly chip away the remaining wood.

Once you are happy that the long pieces fit comfortably into the legs (check the clearance gap between the combined board and the legs), you can use wood screws to secure the long pieces to the legs. I’m using 50mm screws but these are definitely over-kill for this application. I also used some wood glue but I don't think this will make much of a difference to the strength

Before we secure the legs to the top board, it is a good idea to do the bulk of the sanding. Sanding the top board will be significantly easier if you don’t have to reach around the legs and get into awkward corners.

There are hundreds of ways of sanding, my process was fairly simple:

• Using a detail sander, sand with 60, 80, 120, 180 grit. Before starting each grit, I lightly marked the board with pencil. Then using even pressure, I worked my way up and down the wood (in the direction of the grain).
• After each pass, I used a soft brush to remove all the sawdust from the surface. It is also a good opportunity to inspect the sandpaper for clogging and replace/clean it before continuing.

It took me 4-5 passes of each grit to remove the pencil markings, you may find that it is greater or fewer depending on your pressure, quality of sandpaper and whether you used a dust extractor.

⚠ Always wear safety glasses, noise-reducing ear protection and ventilation equipment when producing fine particles of resin or wood.

Once you’ve sanded to 180 grit on all parts, it’s now time to glue it all together. Spread a generous layer of the glue onto the top face of the legs. Ensure that you position the legs on either side of the centre-of-mass of the top piece so that the stand is stable and secure.

I only have two clamps so I had to get creative with clamping solutions. I used my two clamps to hold the long bar in the middle of the stand, then used two 10kg weights to push the top board down onto the base. It is also a good reassurance to show that the stand is capable of holding the weight of your monitor.

After a couple of minutes, use a towel to clean up any glue that has started to drip down. This will make finishing easier.

If you have gaps in your resin like I did, you can mix some more resin together, let it partially set and use it to fill in the gaps. See the mistakes section at the end for more information.

Once the glue has fully dried (check the manufacturer’s guidelines, mine took 24 hours), hand-sand one final time to 180 grit paying particular attention to any area that had glue near it. Any areas with residual glue on them will appear as dark spots in the final finish.

Before applying my finish of choice (tung oil), I carried out a water-pop-and-sand. This is a commonly used approach to sanding where you will first wipe the entire surface of your board with a damp towel. As you have been sanding, all the wood fibres have been pushed down and flattened. The water allows those fibres to soak up the water and ‘pop’ up. Wait for the water to dry completely and hand sand again with 180 grit sandpaper. You’ll notice the wood is a little rough after the water has dried and will feel buttery-smooth once you’ve sanded it down.

To finish the wood, I’m using tung oil because the stand won’t be touched often by my hands or with objects. Tung oil finishes can wear quite easily as it does not protect the wood. The oil from your hands can get on it and leave marks and if you are sliding things over the surface, the wood will scratch easily. If you are regularly moving objects around on the surface of your monitor stand, I would recommend adding a final layer of beeswax after you have completed the layers of tung oil.

Follow the manufacturer’s guidelines for how to apply the oil. For me, it was 3 coats thinly applied with 24 hours curing time between each. I also lightly sanded with 180 grit sandpaper to remove any raised grain. Before applying the 3^rd coat of tung oil, I used a paper bag as the sandpaper. This is similar to a 400 grit sandpaper which you are free to use if you have it.

My maintenance plan for the tung oil (because it can fade over time) will be:

-         Once per month for 6 months.

-         Once per year for 3 years.

It is also likely that I will trial using beeswax as a way to ‘lock-in’ the oil. If you know how to better preserve an oil-based finish, please let me know in the comments.

⚠ Always wear safety glasses, noise-reducing ear protection and ventilation equipment when producing fine particles of resin or wood. Check manufacturer’s directions for PPE required when applying the finish.

⚠ If using Tung Oil, do not store used rags in a bundle on the floor once finished. Leave spread out on a non-flammable surface/hang it up to allow the oil to dry fully. Only dispose of the rags once the Tung Oil smell has dissipated from the rags.

And that is the end! After the tung oil has fully cured (can take over a week for you to stop smelling it), the monitor stand is ready for use. The Govee lights I used were LED powered so I plugged them straight into my monitor.

The light diffusion effect is really good. I can barely make out the individual lights unless I'm really close to the monitor stand. The corners aren't well lit (possibly because no LED's were pointing directly at the the corners. A higher density LED light strip should solve this). The lights are also not super visible in daylight. Not an issue for me as I only want it on at night, but some more powerful LED's should help with this. Just be aware that more power = more heat = lower lifespan.

I had such fun making this stand. It seemed so easy at first but ended up taking me multiple weekends whilst I fixed mistakes or under-estimated how long each step would take (Chiselling the channel in Step 2 took me over 5 hours!).

The LED resin light diffuser is definitely untapped potential and there are hundreds of applications for it. Sconces, lamps, lampshades - If you make a resin diffuser for this or another application, let me know in the comments. I'm excited to see where this application of resin can go!

If you've gotten this far, thanks for reading. I have learned so much from Instructables over the years and it is so rewarding to be in a place where I can finally give back to this wonderful community.

I made several mistakes along the way. Below are the mistakes I made and how I remedied them. If you follow the instructions above, you shouldn’t fall into the same pitfalls I did. But if you do, here is what I did to fix them:

• The initial resin pour was not as opaque as I expected it to be:
• Root cause – improper mixing of the resin/hardener/pigment combination before pouring
• Remedy – ‘Paint’ a thin layer of solid white resin on the top. It wasn’t perfect, but the layer did add some irregular diffusion of light which helped the issue. I did this twice, once before I joined the top and bottom boards and once at the end before the third coat of tung oil.
• How to avoid – mix the resin thoroughly (overmixed is better than undermixed)
• Uneven resin layer
• Root cause – The base piece was not perfectly flat when I poured the resin to set.
• Remedy – Fill in the gaps at the end with some partially set resin
• How to avoid – Use a mould to pour the resin in (and sand off the excess) or dig the resin channel slightly deeper and run the base piece through a planer after the resin has set.
• LED Strip wiring broke, having to resaw the piece, ruining the aluminium channel and LED light strip
• Root Cause – Positioning the LED strip-wiring connector in a way that it could easily bend and tear.
• Remedy – Carve out a new channel in the bottom layer. I used an oscillating multi-tool with a grinder attachment to do this. It is definitely more simple, however because the LED’s are now angled at 90 degrees to the resin, your resin layer might need extra opacity. The channel was around 12mm deep. You’ll also see how I carved out some grooves in the centre of the base board to allow the non-LED parts of the light strips to hide in. You may need these depending on how your LED strip lights are manufactured.
• How to avoid: Have all connectors secured within the board when positioning the LEDs
• ⚠ Always wear safety glasses, noise-reducing ear protection and ventilation equipment when producing fine particles of resin or wood.
• Gap between resin and wood in final cut
• Root cause – Board was not completely flat when doing the first resin pour.
• Remedy – Fill in the gaps with partially set resin at the end. I let my resin (usually 36 hours to full cure) cure for 12 hours before using it to fill in the gaps. You’ll see that it was still a little fluid and didn’t make an even layer.
• How to avoid – Make use of a mould when pouring the resin. This will allow you to overfill the resin layer and sand/plane it down to a perfectly flat, full and even layer. Cam from Blacktail Studio (on Youtube) has some great videos on how he builds his moulds when building his resin tables.
• Chip out when trimming the boards down to size
• Root cause - Bending jigsaw blade caused the wood to catch and splinter
• Remedy - Gluing on some offcuts
• How to avoid - Go slower with jigsaw And use a sharp blade to reduce it binding in the wood.