One of the perks if you work with hand tools (mostly) is that you can listen to podcasts, music, the radio or what ever you want, while you work. I have a set of Klipsch R-51PM active speakers mounted in the shop. They. Are. Awesome! I select a playlist on Spotify and enjoys my favorites while I work. After taking a rough sawn board to flat and square, I select B.B.King and his “the thrill is gone”…

One problem though – streaming music via Bluetooth for hours, drains the battery. I’ve resorted to placing the phone in the windowsill, and that is just an accident waiting to happen. In the game iPhone versus concrete floor…. So I decided it was time for a phone holder to eliminate the risk. And I knew just the right kind of gash for the project.

And a nice piece of oak gash it was! Too small to be anything, really – but a small piece for a phone holder? Plenty!

This piece had lots of drying cracks in it, and it was a cut off piece destined for the fire pan to grill some cheese bacon sausages. They are de-lici-ous! And oak is just so good for firewood!

Anyway, this piece was saved from that dreadful fate. There are some nice crotch-action going on there (get your mind out of the gutter! We’re PG-7 -ish here!!). Lots of interesting figure. I planed two faces so that I could rough out the blank on the band saw. During the drying process, the thing had twisted and bent all over the place. I then planed all sides and made them square and parallell. Or «6S» as I refer to it: six sides square.

I then traced the outline of my phone – an Apple iPhone SE 2 (or SE 2020). I made my lines slightly bigger and added a cutout for the charging cable.

Old school tools, old school charging…

I could have cut the mortise by hand, but the drill press has been sulking lately. It was time for it to come out and play!

Afterwards, though – chisel time! My firmer chisels did the brunt of the work while my bench chisels fine tuned the slot.

I then cut the lines with my dovetail saw.

Some choppin’ and paring, and the rough shape was done.

I used the router plane to clean up the back wall, and some more cisel work to clean up all edges, corners and surfaces.

A few swipes with the smoothing plane cleaned the piece up nicely, and I drilled holes for screws. To the windows, to the wall! Aaand we’re stopping there…

There are three windows on that wall, relax! I actually don’t like rap music..

A bit of walnut oil, and the grain really popped! There are some nice mother of pearl effects in there.

There you go. No plastic – but a really nice piece of oak just so that I can put my phone away while I work. Work. Work. Work. Work.

Rihanna is definitely NOT on my playlists. An entire team of writers to make up that kind of lyrics? Not my cup of tea. But then we have Freddie Mercury, Clapton and the (sometimes confusing) texts by Knopfler.

Talk about your six blade chisel! That’ll charge you up…