Personalised mobile phone holder

Personalised gifts are always nice to receive, especially when they’re useful too!

For my brother’s birthday earlier this year, I designed and made him a personalised mobile phone holder, so he has somewhere to put his phone on his desk. I selected some pine to make the main body and some walnut to use as a feature for his initials within the upright section.

I cut the pieces to length using my cross cut sled on the table saw and then tipped the blade to 20 degrees to cut the upright pieces at an angle so the phone is tipped back slightly in the holder.

I then used my hand saw to remove the outer quarters, refining the cut with a chisel to give me a tenon to go into a mortice in the base.

I sanded the piece of pine to act as the stop by hand, ensuring it had a suitable angle to be an effective brace for the phone.

I used my chisel to make the mortice in the base and kept test fitting until the upright angled piece fitted snugly.

I printed out some letters for my brother’s initials and then used my coping saw to cut them out of a thin piece of walnut I had left over from a previous project. Once I had the letters sanded flush with the printed letter templates, I used the walnut letters to draw out the material to be removed from the pine piece, which I then did carefully using a chisel.

I glued on the front brace and used a scrap piece of wood on top of the walnut letters to provide even pressure while the glue dried. I then used my random orbit sander to sand the recessed letters flush with the surface of the pine, before finishing the assembly of the phone holder by gluing the angled tenon into the mortice.

I recently picked up a new woodburning tool, so thought this was an opportunity for an interesting experiment to add a highlight around the edges of the letters. The walnut took the burning quite well but there was a bit of bleed in the pine, so something to keep an eye out for in future projects.

I added my logo to the bottom of the holder and finished it with a couple of coats of Danish oil for projection and to bring out the grain in the walnut and pine.

Once the Danish oil had fully dried and I had wiped off any remaining excess, I wrapped up the phone holder to give as a gift.

I am particularly pleased with how this turned out, as it was my first attempt at making angled tenons and took a bit of maths to work out how deep to make the corresponding mortice. I also tried out woodburning for the first time and have learnt more about how different types of wood respond to the heat. I’m looking forward to exploring options on future projects next time I’m making a fun gift for someone! 🔨