Hey everyone! Chris here and welcome back to Rustic DIY Projects! I love when I'm able to make something that not only looks cool and serves some sort of decorative purpose but is also practical as well. That's why I really liked this weeks project. I made this a while back but I've finally gotten around to making a post for it. This right here is an iPhone charging dock I made out of some scrap walnut and some ultra high molecular weight polyethylene sheeting (yup, that's what it's called). I use it everyday and it looks great, here's how I made it.
Tools/Supplies Used
Table Saw
Planer
Drill
Drill Press
Band saw
Belt Sander
Forstner Bit
Chisel
Walnut
Ultra High Molecular Weight Polyethylene Sheeting
Pencil
READ ALL DIRECTIONS BEFORE STARTING EACH STEP
Step One
For this step I took my walnut boards and planed them down using my super loud Porter Cable planer. Then I realized the blades were dull and they weren't taking anything off so I took it over to my friend's house down the road and finished them off with his much better Dewalt planer. After that I used a belt sander to smooth everything out.
Step Two
Now that everything was planed smooth I just had to cut everything to the right size. So I cut my two walnut boards to 10.5" by 6.5" and and did the same with my polyethylene sheet. I glued them all together thinking everything would work out fine but the glue I was using just wouldn't bond the wood and the polyethylene sheet together so I just drilled some holes and screwed them together instead.
Step Three
I didn't really think through how all the cabling was going to work out on the bottom end, you know with the iPhone charging cable and all, so I unscrewed everything and cut out the inside of the bottom walnut board to allow everything to fit in then screwed a hole leading to the top for the cable to reach the actual dock part. Then I re screwed everything with deck screws since they were all I had lying around at the time.
For the dock portion I literally just took out my phone and traced out it's shape on the surface, squared it off a bit, and used a forstner bit and drill press to bore out the inside from end to end. I think I went in about 1/4" or 1/2" deep just to make sure my phone could sit in it without falling out. After I'd finished with that I used a chisel to square everything off. This could also be done was easier using a mortising machine but I didn't have one at the time. You could also do this with a router however my router scares me and I didn't feel like setting up a jig to keep the cut perfectly within the traced outline. If I had though this would look much cleaner than it does right now but seeing as this is strictly for me I don't really care too much.
Step Five
Set it up on my nightstand, bought another charging cable and routed it through the hole and it's done!
Note: I didn't glue the charging cable into the hole because these cables break all the time and I don;t feel like having to drill them out every time I want to replace them. It's also easy to just pull the plug out to the phone then seat it within the dock. But if you want to glue it then by all means have at it.
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