quick projects – Nothing In It

Phone Tripod Mount

Posted on 2025.11.13 by Elliott Evans

Following up on the discovery that the IKEA Skogsviken tray was the perfect size to hold the new Titan 2 phone, I was finally able to make something I have been thinking about for some time: a tripod mount for my phone. I could have made one out of wood, but I only had square tuits around. Also, in my experience, small wooden boxes and trays are far more fragile than similar plastic objects. The opportunity to give this idea a try with only a $3 plastic tray at risk was too good to pass up.

First, I cut a hole in the tray at the location of the subscreen, cameras (there are two cameras on the back), and LED flash. The best way I found to do this was to drill several holes through the plastic to create the opening, then use wood chisels to straighten up the edges. This also meant removing one of the “feet” from the back, this tray can no longer be placed securely on the Skogsviken towel bar.

Titan 2 ans Skogsviken tray with tripod mounting plate.

Next, I made a mounting plate by cutting a square of 3/8″-thick wood, drilling a hole in it, and inserting a 1/4″x20tpi tee nut. Then, I attached the plate to the back of the tray using a couple of 3M Command strips. These removable adhesive strips should come in handy for whatever object holds the next phone.

That’s it! Just screw the tripod to the mounting plate and slip the phone into the tray for stabilized, repeatable shots. I can use either the front camera or back cameras. I can also use the tray with some smaller “pocket” tripods I have to make a fancy desk stand. These kind of tripod mounts for phones can cost quite a bit of money, and they normally need to “grip” your phone at the sides in some kind of clamp. I much prefer this easy tray arrangement.

New Phone Tray

Posted on 2025.11.11 by Elliott Evans

Since I have a new phone, and it is not the same size as the old phone, I needed to make a new phone tray.

I made this from some 1/4″ cherry I had around after doing some re-saw work on a thicker cherry board from the Alben Sawmill. The sides are just tall enough to hold the phone, and the assembly is glued and pinned together with no fancy joinery. I left it all unfinished so it can age naturally in the sun. The cut-out at the bottom enables me to plug in a USB cord if I need to charge the phone or connect it to the Android Auto system. It also makes it possible to grab the phone and lift it out of the tray when needed. Can’t press the side buttons, but maybe that’s a good thing?

Underneath the tray is a metal clip that attaches the tray to the parking brake lever. The clip is screwed to a wooden block that is attached to the tray with removable adhesive strips. The other wood block keeps the tray level, which was a problem with the old tray that I fixed this time.

If you need a tray for your Unihertz Titan 2, but you don’t have the time or ability to do woodworking, you can get this perfect fit plastic tray at IKEA for $3. You will have to figure out a mounting system yourself, however.

Monitor Booster

Posted on 2025.09.12 by Elliott Evans

Here’s a silly little quick project that barely even rates a blog post, but here it is anyway. So I have this external monitor that I used to use for work back when I worked from home. You can see in the photo that if I have the tablet in its charging stand, it blocks the lower-right corner of the monitor. The monitor’s stand is not height-adjustable. I only needed to boost the monitor up by like 1.25″ to get it above the edge of the tablet.

Luckily, regular “l by” lumber is 3/4″ thick, so stacking two layers would get me 1.5″ of boost. I still had some of the same cherry-stain pine shelving that I made the little desk hutch out of, so it was just a mater of cutting one piece the same size as the footprint of the monitor stand, and making four little feet. The whole thing is just glued together, and I put some cork pads on the feet to make it just a little nicer.

Enjoy the reflection of my messy studio.

Phone / Tablet Stand

Posted on 2025.09.102025.09.13 by Elliott Evans

For a short period of time (ten weeks) I worked for a local Pittsburgh company with an office up in Cranberry. This was the first company I’ve ever worked for that handed me a smartphone on day 1 and said, “We don’t have desk phones any more. This is your phone.” I have worked for companies that did voice-over-IP through your computer, and I have worked for companies that just did calls through Teams, but never a mobile phone.

Consequently, this was the first job I ever had where I was sitting at my desk with two phones to keep track of. I have made a couple of wooden phone stands before, but never one wide enough to hold more than one phone at a time.

That’s all it is. I had a chunk of some kind of tropical lumber, and I cut it to shape. There’ a little bit of oil finish. Here’s how it looks with my personal phone and a small 8″ tablet.

It’s totally wide enough to support two or maybe three phones or one extra-large tablet. No, it’s not possible to charge the device if the USB port is at the bottom, but I don’t buy devices that are that power-hungry anyway.

I don’t have that job any more (My only regret is ever taking the job in the first place.), but I took my swanky stand with me when I left.

Small Cooler Karabitsu

Posted on 2025.09.052025.09.05 by Elliott Evans

Sweetie ordered some frozen food from someplace, and it arrived packed in a small cooler. I had the bright idea to make a small karabitsu to hold/hide the cooler, and that was all she needed to hear. I grabbed some 1/2″ pine and some surplus 2×4 for legs, and got to work.

The body of the karabitsu is 13″x10.5″x11″. I used traditional box joints at the corners. The legs are simply glued on, though they do hook under the body to support the floor. The floor is fully captive inside the walls, and nailed in place. The lid is a 3/4″-thick piece of “premium pine”, and it is rebated to fit the body of the box like a box lid.

Here you can see the rebated lid, and how nicely the little cooler fits inside the body. The handle ropes pass through holes in the ends of the body, and the rope does a good job of keeping the cooler in place. The exterior of the karabitsu is finished with clear polyurethane, so if it gets rained on or otherwise splashed with water it should be OK.

This is a nice little cooler that should be good for chilling beverages for an afternoon, or for packing lunch to an event.

Kitchen Drawer Organizer Boxes

Posted on 2025.08.30 by Elliott Evans

We’ve been using some of those little 3″x6″ bamboo boxes to keep measuring spoons and things organized in our kitchen drawers. The only problem is that some of the measuring spoons are too long to fit nicely in those boxes. Luckily, I still have some 1/4″ maple scants left over from something else. These new boxes are the same width, but they are 3/4″ longer and a little bit deeper to better hold our growing collection of measuring spoons and rubber vacuum stoppers.

Here is what they look like empty.
I’ve learned to always make one or two extra.

The joinery is just simple butt joins, glued together and then pinned. The floors of the boxes are applied to the bottom of the walls, and similarly attached. I put a some mineral oil on them just to protect the wood a little bit from kitchen spills and the like.

Here is what they look like in the drawer and filled with stuff.

Bamboo Tote

Posted on 2024.09.042024.09.04 by Elliott Evans

Having made the bamboo satchel, I still had one RÖDEBY bamboo thingy from IKEA. I’ve been using a collapsible box tote for the last few years to carry all my regular SCA stuff (papers and whatnot), and it is starting to show its age. I figure these bamboo things will be pretty durable over time, so maybe a more open-top design this time. This is much like the crates I used to make a lot of, but the fabric lining makes it a continuous surface inside. I just had to figure out the right size squares for the end pieces.

Bamboo Tote with Pine Board ends and a Rope Handle

The tote is assembled with glue and copper nails . The rope is attached by inserting it through holes I drilled in the pine board. There is no finish or anything other than what came on the RÖDEBY. Here’s what it looks like when I fill it up with my stuffs:

It is a little smaller than the fabric tote it is replacing, but that is OK. I often despair of how much stuffs I carry around all the time, so tighter limits are probably for the best.

This only took me an hour or so to put together, plus the time it took for the glue to fully cure.

Sawhorse Crate

Posted on 2024.08.142024.08.15 by Elliott Evans

I made four Japanese-style sawhorses several years ago, but I realized recently that I had no way to transport them except to toss the pieces into the trunk of my car or pile them in a wagon. Then, some friends of mine moved away and gifted me with a pile of lumber they had been using as storage shelving. I spent a few days at the 51st Pennsic War medieval event constructing this 26″x16″x11.25″ crate using only hand tools, as a demo of Japanese style woodworking.

I used a ryoba nokogiri saw to do all the cutting of the pieces from the boards, and some of the joinery. I used oire nomi chisels and a mawashibiki saw to cut the remainder of the joinery and the handle cut-outs. A yotsume kiri gimlet came in handy for pilot holes so that the wood didn’t split when I drove in the nails with a genno tsuchi hammer.

Contrary to common belief, Japanese carpenters would not have used fancy joinery without nails to construct such a simple workman’s item. That kind of specialty carpentry was mostly used for devotional items or religious buildings. They probably would have used forged nails instead of wire nails, but I don’t have any of those handy. The big chunky box joints are seen a lot in shipping and storage boxes.

The linen bag holds the wedges and pegs that hold the horses together when assembled. I wrapped the handle cut-outs with some of this great palm rope from Hida Tools. I call it a crate instead of a box because there’s actually an opening in the floor because I just used two pieces of 1-by-12, leaving a 2-inch gap in the middle. This should let the sawdust and shavings out.

The completed box plus sawhorse parts is pretty heavy, so I have to store it on a lower shelf instead of storing the loose pieces on the highest shelf in the garage. I might try to figure out a packing pattern for only one horse’s worth of pieces, then make 2 of those for the other 2 horses.

Karakusa Mousepads

Posted on 2023.06.022023.06.02 by Elliott Evans

Although I have been working for my current company for almost three years, nobody ever gave me a mouse pad for either my desktop in the office or for the laptop I use to work from home. I went to the office store to buy mousepads, and they only come with generic graphics or in a small selection of solid colors. I guess nothing else really sells these days. Anyway, I wound up buying a 2-pack of royal blue mousepads. Because that was boring me, I took a marker and doodled some karakusa decorative vinework around he edges.

That’s better. I’m so glad that I taught myself how to do this for the Tachi Kake project.

Endai Bench with Folding Legs

Posted on 2023.01.282023.02.01 by Elliott Evans

We are going to need some auxiliary seating at an SCA event in March, and most of the benches I have made are locked up in a storage trailer. Plus, they are large and not very portable. My breakdown bench is nice and portable, but somewhat of a pain to re-create given the weird joinery. I decided to design something based on the shape of a Japanese endai bench, but a little smaller than normal, and with folding legs so that it be a little more portable. Bonus points if I could make it so that it would fit in a little fold-up wagon we use to transport stuff at events.

The top of this bench measures 15″x30″ and it is about 15″ tall. It took me most of a Saturday in the shop from start to finish. I was able to construct it entirely from lumber that I already had in the garage. The majority of the 2by4 material came from a single 12-footer that’s been up on the rack for three or four years. As a consequence, the bench has a bit of a twist to it and doesn’t sit completely flat on the floor until you put some weight on it. Even the axles for the legs are made from a poplar dowel I had “in stock”.

Late in the design process, I decided to move the legs in one inch from the ends. I did not think about the fact that this would mean that the legs would have to be shorter if they were going to fold entirely into the undercarriage. So, it does not fold up entirely, but it does fold up mostly. If I cut the legs an inch shorter, they would fit, but I also would have to cut clearance curves onto the ends so that the corners wouldn’t jam things up.

I used screws to hold the whole thing together, which I’m not proud of, but I just was not in the mood to do fancier joinery than that. I am proud of the fact that I did most of the cutting by hand with a ryoba saw, though the curves at the tops of the legs were much easier on the band saw. The sanding and assembly were all done with power tools, because I really did want this to be done in one day. Success!