Making an Apple Watch Charging StationPosted by Lancaster Padilla on June 12th, 2021 [, Music, ]: well, hey there guys and welcome back on this week's show an Apple watch charging station. Well, this is a fly by the seat of my pants build. I have an idea in my mind, but I really don't know how it's gon na turn out or for that matter. I really don't know how to go about it at this point in time, so we're just gon na wing it and see what happens guys. This project all starts off with scrap wood once again as it's not a very big project, and it all starts off with a little chunk of maple that I found up in the rack. Well, those of you that have Apple watches know that it's charger looks like this. It'S a magnetic disk and basically it sits on your nightstand or wherever you charge your watch and your watch basically snaps on to the back of it and it charges. Now. It has an alarm clock mode where it sits kind of sideways like this and that automatically puts it into alarm clock mode, and but I don't like sitting it like this - I don't know why. So I thought how about if we make a stand to hold the watch in alarm clock mode when it's charging. So I went over to the rack and I found this chunk of maple, and this is what we're gon na start off with. So I have chosen, which would be the front face of my watch charger, and that will be this face right here and I need to drill a hole that will accept our charging disk. So the first thing we're gon na do is measure this disk millimeters. How can I get millimeters there? We go darn metric, all right, it's one and three thirty seconds, so we're gon na make that a little bigger, because I won't have a Forstner bit for that. But one in 1/8 will do just fine one in an 8 in diameter and it needs to be quarter of an inch deep. So we're gon na drill that hole centered on our block of maple and while we're here at the drill press, we will drill a quarter inch through hole right down through the center of where we just drilled. This Forstner bit hole. Well, we still have a few more holes to drill and the first one is going to be a series, a series rather of quarter-inch holes in the bottom of our watch charging station. We want it to be about a quarter of an inch back from the edge. It'S a quarter, inch diameter hole and we're gon na drill until we cut into this hole that we drilled for our charging disc, we're gon na drill about a quarter of an inch into that we're now gon na take a sharp half inch chisel and we're just Gon na chisel this off here so that we have a nice channel, this is actually a place for our USB plug to exit out of our charging station, so we've essentially created a mortise there and we'll just clean it up on the other side as well. Now you may need to clean out some of the inside of this hole as well to give clearance for your USB plug and we'll just check to see how we're doing here looks like we need a little more clearance, so I'm gon na continue working on this And you can do the same, get enough clearance until you can get your USB plug out the back. Well in no time at all. Hopefully, you should have a little channel there that you can just push your USB connector through and get your watch charging disc in the hole. Now we're gon na use some hot glue a little later to hold this in place, and what was that quarter-inch through-hole for? Well that my friends is in case you need to get this thing out later. You can break the seal of the hot glue with a piece of dowel and that will allow you to get your charger out. If, for some reason you suddenly decide you don't want to use this any longer well, I guess our next step should be shaping it, so our watch will wrap around this platform, but this isn't actually a shape. That'S very conducive to clamping, a watch too. So what I'm gon na do is I'm going to put the watch in a configuration where I would normally wear it just like that and we're just gon na see what kind of a shape we get here just like this and then quite simply, I'm just going To trace around the handle of the watch and then we're going to shape it clean up the the actual shape from the tracing, and we will shape it to match what we traced alright. So there's the rough, our rough shape, we're going to refine this and clean it up and then we're going to take it over to the belt sander and now using the belt sander. We are just going to sand around up to our line to shape our charger. In that oval shape that we just refined all right, so I decided to save on my sanding belt a little bit and I brought it over to the bandsaw and cut off the majority of the material and now I'll sand up to the line with our initial Shaping done we're just gon na test it on our actual watch stand, and you know what it's not exactly like. I would have liked it. I would have liked it a little. I would have liked it a little closer to the actual size that I wear, but I kind of like the way this fit, so I don't want to mess with it anymore. It fits on there nicely it's nice and secure. So what do we do next? Well, now, what I really need is to shape the bottom, because I don't like this sitting so perfectly upright. I would like to have it tilt it back just a little bit so once again, we're gon na take it over to the sander, and I am just going to sand the bottom until I get a nice slope that I like so in order to get consistent, Sanding results here: all I've done is placed a quarter inch by quarter inch strip of scrap maple, underneath the one end and flush to the edge, and that way it keeps the piece tilted at all times. In order for me to sand it and get it nice and even well, I now need to get a groove from our slot here for our USB right out the back and what that is going to be, for it is for our cord to come out. So I'm just going to use a trim router I've got a 1/8 inch diameter round, nose straight bit installed and I'm just gon na nibble away at this. Until I get my groove [ Music ] now, I think I'd like mine to be just a little deeper here, so I'm gon na do that and as well. This sharp corner right here this is where your cord is going to be coming around and out the back. So you really want to make sure that you've got that rounded over so get a small round file and get in there and take that sharp edge off. So it doesn't damage your cord and just to finish it off we're going to give a quarter inch round over all around the top edge. Now give the entire thing a thorough sanding, and then we can come back and finish it off well before I show you the final step, I'm just going to put a little bit of danish oil on this just to kind of finish it off. I will end up putting a coat of vert Athene on this or varnish later on, but for now just to finish the project for the show we'll put a little bit of Danish oil on it just to get the wood sealed up. Well now, it's time to assemble our project. If you will, I don't know how you assemble a solid block of wood, but I'm gon na try. So you all you want to do is place your cord down through the slot, the USB slot that you did earlier. Just pull this through almost all the way and then we're just gon na use just a little dab of hot glue to hold our charger. In the reason I'm using a hot glue is I don't want a permanent connection in here? I don't want this in here forever. Who knows, I may change my mind one day and decide. I don't want it in there and there we go. I have it a little crooked there we are and then, of course, your cord just goes along and your little groove that you made there and once the glue is set up, that is your Apple watch charging station to complete it. So now, when you're charging your watch overnight - and you want that, you want that alarm clock feature there, you go just like that: charging and an alarm clock all in one shot and there you have it. An Apple watch charging station made from some scrap maple guys. This project lends itself to pretty much any species or any combination, if you want it to laminate a bunch of different contrasting species together to get upon your final block and use up smaller pieces of scrap go for it. Why not? I mean this whole thing today started as an experiment, because I thought I had an idea that would work and sure enough. For me it did work and I'm quite pleased with the results. It'S not too bulky doesn't take up too much room and it also allows my watch to stand up like that, so that when I, you know, wake up in the night, and I look at my end table. I can see the darn thing and know that I still have four more hours before I have to get up and go to work and yeah. What am I even doing up guys just a load of fun, with a minimum amount of equipment required? click to read used was a belt sander. I used the bandsaw just a little bit and well what else I'll use the drill press? These are all things that we have in our shop. If you don't have some of those, you could do it by hand. It'S really not that big of a deal any of the curves or any of the shapes could easily be filed, and you could sand using a piece of sandpaper adhere to some 3/4 inch thick MDF. Just rub it back and forth you at that nice flat surface gives you a nice finish and Bob's your uncle no big deal. This will get some varnish put on it at some point in time, just to give it a little bit of added protection, but in the name of sort of time, with the show and being able to finish the episode I didn't put that finish on and hence Why just the Danish oil, although I like Danish oil, because it sky, like God, it's a soft finish. That'S that's what I like about it. It'S a soft kind of a velvety finish and it has a really nice texture to it that I or a sheen, rather that I happen to really like anyway for a couple hours work, not even that. How can you go wrong guys if you haven't already, please don't forget to Like and subscribe to click that Bell so that you don't miss the notifications of future episodes of the show. I hope you've enjoyed this project honestly for something so simple. It was a heck of a lot of fun. I really enjoyed it. I know as soon as I bring it in my wife is gon na want one and then I'm gon na end up having to make a second one, but I'm okay with that, because, honestly it was a load of fun guys. Thank you. So much for tuning in this week I hope you're gon na try this one for yourself and I hope you're gon na join me again next week. When I bring you yet another woodworking video youLike it? Share it! |