A while ago, I picked up a several 17″ LCD monitors for pocket change. They were old monitors from a school district in the Seattle area that had upgraded their computers. The only problem with the screens was that they didn’t have any stands. I’ve had the screens for almost a year and I haven’t used them solely because I haven’t found a stand for them. Today, I finally gave up finding cheap stands and just made some. The following is a quick how to make a LCD monitor stand.
Materials:
acrylic sheet (anything larger than 32cm x 12cm and 0.23622 cm thickness)
aluminum foil
ruler
drill
drill bits
screws
heat source
plastic cutting knife
First, cut a piece of acrylic about 1cm wider than the center of the mounting holes on each side on the mounting area on the screen and long enough to reach the bottom of the screen plus a little extra. The extra is so that you can bend and create a base for the screen. For my Dell screen I cut a 12cm x 32cm piece. That leaves 1cm width of extra acrylic on each side and a lot on the bottom.
Next, mark on the acrylic where the mounting holes reside on the back of the screen. The holes on my screen were 10cm apart in a square. Drill the required number of holes in the diameter of the screws. Make sure it mounts properly.
Measure or eye where the acrylic will need to bend to be effective to hold up the screen. Cover the acrylic that you do not want to bend in aluminum foil. Leave about a 1cm gap where the acrylic will bend. The foil will help protect the acrylic from getting hot enough to be malleable.
Use a heat source to heat the acrylic. I used my stove. Hold the work piece over the heat source until it begins to bend on it’s own. Why work when gravity will do it for you!
Once the work piece is hot, bend to a 90 degree angle. The weight of the screen will cause this thin acrylic to bend a bit.
If you feel adventurous, you can repeat the heat bending process to make a neat base.
