I use an iMac at work, which I love. BUT, I do sometimes find that Apple as a company is more interested in style than function. In particular, I find it silly that all the ports are on the back. It makes it a constant headache to plug in a headphone cord, or a USB thumb drive.

I need a monitor stand to lift up my iMac, and I'm going to add a few details to make it extra interesting. In particular, I'm routing out a recess to firmly hold a USB extension cable that I use.

Here is the sketch of what I'm building, along with all the needed dimensions.

(The recess is designed for a StarTech.com USB Extension cable. There is a link to it on Amazon found at the bottom of this page)

I built mine out of some wide pine boards that I had left over from a previous project. Since they were quite wide, it saved me the need to glue up narrower boards. This helped speed up the project. Also, this is kind of a "utility" project, so I didn't feel like going with "fancier" wood. Not that there is anything wrong with pine...

I planed and jointed the boards to a thickness of 5/8". I could have left the boards thicker, but when I designed it in sketchup, I found that 3/4" wood look a bit heavy for this small project.

I used a 1/2" cove bit in my small router table to make a pencil groove along the front of the board. I made two passes, adjusting the fence a small amount in between cuts, to make a slightly wider pencil groove.

For the USB cable recess, I just traced the weighted end of the USB extension cable onto the top board.

I then routed out a 1/8" deep recess with my palm router. I just routed it freehand, going slowly and carefully up to the line that I had traced. The result was by no means perfect, but it was pretty good, and certainly good enough. I used a 1/4" straight bit.

I glued on the two legs and held them in place with glue and two pin nails on each. I then drilled three holes along each end and inserted 1/4" contrasting dowels. This is for aesthetics as well as joinery strength.

I then glued in a shelf 1-1/2" down from the top. I also fastened it with dowels.

I cut the dowels flush, and sanded the whole project. It was then finished with two coats of Danish oil.

Located below are a bunch of photos of the finished project.