My wife frequently uses a coffee mug to amplify her iPhone music when in the kitchen. Having recently seen a pre-made iPhone amplifier kit from Rockler that does this in a much more elegant fashion (using wood rather than a ceramic mug), I was inspired to build one myself using my lathe and a router. What I have done here is almost a direct copy of the kit sold by Rockler, and it is possibly not as sophisticated (e.g., Rockler uses nonlinear sound channels for reasons that I don't understand), so you might just want to buy theirs directly. That said, I made mine on the lathe (turning the speaker recesses on two separate mountings), so it was a fun woodturning project. I should also add that my wife's iPhone has an attached keyboard that makes it thicker than the standard iPhone, so the pre-made kit from Rockler was a non-starter for me. If you make your own you can adapt it to whatever smartphone configuration you have.
I used a block of 10"x5"x2" cherry left over from an old woodworking project. I mounted it on two axes to turn each of the 3" diameter half-spheres (each only 1-3/8" deep, so not quite a full half sphere). Then with a router I cut the rectangle for the iPhone and a 3/8" channel from each speaker hole in the iPhone to each each "bowl". (I've crudely indicated the channel in a second photo using a marker.) Nothing as elaborate as the Rocker kit. I re-sawed a 1/8" veneer of cherry which I then glued over the whole thing, then used a bearing-guided pattern maker's bit in the router to cut through the circles and the iPhone rectangle. It is better than a coffee mug, but not as good as a pair of electronic speakers. Still, a fun turned gift using some left over wood. And if you are like me and have given away so many bowls to friends and family that they have pre-emptively asked you to stop, then this project will likely be appreciated more.
Speaking of unusual "turned" gifts, I recently built a hovercraft for my daughters using the lathe, plywood, a leaf blower, a shower curtain and lots of duct tape, but that is another post entirely.
I used a block of 10"x5"x2" cherry left over from an old woodworking project. I mounted it on two axes to turn each of the 3" diameter half-spheres (each only 1-3/8" deep, so not quite a full half sphere). Then with a router I cut the rectangle for the iPhone and a 3/8" channel from each speaker hole in the iPhone to each each "bowl". (I've crudely indicated the channel in a second photo using a marker.) Nothing as elaborate as the Rocker kit. I re-sawed a 1/8" veneer of cherry which I then glued over the whole thing, then used a bearing-guided pattern maker's bit in the router to cut through the circles and the iPhone rectangle. It is better than a coffee mug, but not as good as a pair of electronic speakers. Still, a fun turned gift using some left over wood. And if you are like me and have given away so many bowls to friends and family that they have pre-emptively asked you to stop, then this project will likely be appreciated more.
Speaking of unusual "turned" gifts, I recently built a hovercraft for my daughters using the lathe, plywood, a leaf blower, a shower curtain and lots of duct tape, but that is another post entirely.
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