Painting "Block" Holder

My wife has recently gotten into watercolor painting, and the paper she uses comes in a thing called a block.  There are times when she would like to have the block not flat on the table, but at an angle.  So necessity being the mother of invention, I made a block holder with adjustable angle.  It turns out that the "adjustable" part was a bit tougher than I thought it might be.

The completed project

I had some spare spruce/pine/fir from the potting bench project, so I used that.  The block is 9" x 12" and I'm making this thing 12" x 14".  I had remembered a book holder project that Matt Estlea did on YouTube and I thought I'd make something similar.

The two frames are half-lapped together.  The top one will get a horizontal member that holds the adjustable "kickstand" and the bottom frame gets a third front-to-back stile that has notches cut in it to receive the lower end of the kickstand.

Front frame partially done

Half-lap joints

The kickstand cross-piece has to swivel to allow different height positions.  So I experimented on some scrap with an integral round 3/8" tenon on one piece going into a 1/2" deep, 3/8" diameter hole in another.  This seemed about right, so I went with it.

Prototyping a swiveling part

Here's the real thing - parts connected with a bridle joint
and round integral tenons shaped with saw, rasp and file

The piece in my hand in the above photo is actually hollow.  I made it by plowing a 1" wide, 5/16" deep groove in a 6" x 1 1/2" x 1/2" piece, then gluing on a cover.  This hollowed-out piece houses a 5/16" thick inner piece that slides in and out to adjust the angle of the project.  I had experimented with a sliding dovetail mechanism for the kickstand, but wasn't happy with it.

Before gluing up the two frames, I mortised the bottom pieces for hinges.  It was much easier doing this when the parts were more manageable.

Hinges ready

The lower frame was straightforward - two rails and three stiles half-lapped together.  But I did add notches to the center stile to accept the kickstand.

The lower frame ready for glue-up

Gluing up - you can see the notches in the center stile

Some further touches included gluing on a 1/2" x 1/2" piece as a ledge to support the watercolor "block", drilling some holes in the inner kickstand piece, and making a small pin to keep that inner piece from retracting into the outer piece.

Here's the ledge that will support the watercolor "block"

The pin (made from a bamboo chopstick) and prototype hole

The pin in place showing how it prevents the inner piece from retracting

And here it is all together showing the range of angles it can be set to.  With four notches and three holes in the inner member of the kickstand, there's a lot of adjustability.

Maximum setting is 45 deg

Minimum setting (other than sitting flat) is about 15 deg

And of course, when not in use, it can fold flat for storage

I gave this project three coats of shellac, followed by a coat of wax.  I also added little vinyl feet on the the bottom frame so that it won't slide on the work table.

The tough thing about this project was trying to figure out where in the top frame to put the pivoting kickstand, and how long to make the kickstand parts.  To do this, I hinged together the two frames while they were dry-fit, the top frame with the pivoting arm not yet in place.  I clamped a 45 deg triangle between the frames to set the maximum angle and sort of looked where it might be best to place the pivoting arm.  I was really just guessing here, but it seems to have worked out.

One last thing.  The extending part of the kickstand has a chamfer top and bottom to create a point at its end.  Because that point enters the notches in the bottom frame at different angles, I cut those notches at different angles.  They're not perfect, and I didn't try to make them so, but they hold the kickstand nicely.

You can see the point in this photo

That's it.  For a simple little project, it sure had me thinking a lot.