Custom made wood lapdesk

I use my laptop often and deal with neck strain, so I thought I'd build myself a lapdesk capable of raising my laptop closer to eye level.

The design is pretty simple. A stand and base connected by a basic doorhinge, and some legs that can lock into slots along the base.

I had originally tried using a CNC router to cut out the piece but found it took too long to cut. This time I used a laser cutting machine.

Using the lightburn software, I mocked up the designs. Lightburn is somewhat cumbersome, I would recommend using a different software like illustrator and export to SVG.

This is the laser cutter. Shout to Seattle Makers.

The cut was pretty quick, less than a half hour. It's also quite precise. The edges are burnt uniformly, giving it a pretty unique appearance. The plywood also smells nice and woody while lasering.

Once cut, I glued pieces together, essential to have gaps for the legs to slot into.

You can see the design taking shape. I sourced regular old door hinges and assembled the final product.

Here's a side profile of an earlier design (the CNC routed attempt).

The completed product