With the addition of a Dobro to my collection of guitars, I decided that it was time to get serious about a better way to keep my instruments. The current system has been to keep whatever instrument I’m most recently playing on a stand and the rest in their cases, laying on beds, or even leaning up against the wall. Becca and I were getting kind of tired of tripping over these things in our office/studio room, so I got inspired to build a “guitar stand to end all guitar stands.”
After looking around online, I noticed that there is a trend for these DIY pvc pipe guitar stands. Yes, they serve the purpose, but I’m not too impressed by their appearance and besides, having cheap PVC pipe hold up my beloved instruments seems a little odd to me. Example here:
Being the crafty individual I am, I set out to find a cheap and elegant solution to building a guitar stand for myself. I immediately came to the conclusions that I’d like for it to be made out of wood and for it to look nice enough where you wouldn’t be embarrassed to have it sitting in your living room. After giving it some quick thought, I remembered the cedar materials I had left over from the deck project. With those, a few screws and a little bit of upholstery, I figured I could build something pretty quickly.
I couldn’t really find any plans for the type of design I wanted– a wood guitar stand with the capacity of four guitars– so I grabbed my measuring tape and figured out the dimensions that would work and sketched a quick diagram of what it should look like. I cut and sanded all of my wood pieces to fit. After assembling the frame from the cedar pieces using some wood screws and dowels I had laying around, I tossed on a clear coat of finish. Once dry, I cut a piece of 1″ thick dowel into five pieces to serve as the neck holders.
After getting the structure complete, I just needed some padding for the parts the guitars would be touching. I went and picked up some foam pipe insulator and cheap fabric. After getting the padding and fabric on with a stable gun and some adhesive spray, everything was complete!
I’m very proud of the way this turned out. I don’t have a ton of experience in woodworking, but this is a solid and decent looking solution for my needs. In my mind, it’s much nicer and elegant than the metal tubular (or pvc pipe) stands that I’ve seen elsewhere. The best part was, I only spent $10 to build it since I already had the wood lying around.
