When I decided that I wanted a dock for my phone I quickly looked online at what would match my set up. However, soon I realized that these docks were priced $35+, and in my opinion that was just too much for something to hold my iPhone upright. So I did some research and came across a variety of homemade docks. One included the use of pencils (here) and even a template for a paper one (here).

However interesting, these docks didn’t fit me. So when I was staring at my desk it hit me. What if I put the dock into the desk? I soon realized that with my desk this would be possilbe. In a matter of an hour or so I had my phone syncing in what I like to think one of the biggest docks ever made.

This is how I did it;

Step 1) Desk

Get a desk that is cheap, and by cheap I mean a desk that is hollow. These “ikea” desks (I believe) are cheaply priced because the tope of the desk is not solid wood. This makes it a breeze to make this mod happen with little tools.

Step 2) Template & Dock

Now for this to work you are going to need a dock to place the iPhone/iPod into. Well it just happens that you get one of these “Dock Adaptors” with your device. So take this adaptor and trace a paper footprint. This will give you a template for the hole that you will be cutting.

Step 3) Tracing and Cutting

Next thing to do is find a location on the desk that you want to make the hole with. I angled mine so that when looking at the screen it could be a glance over to the screen of the device. I really didn’t have any tools around the house, but found a knife worked very well.

Step 4) The Cord

Since I didn’t want the cord of the dock to come out of the bottom of the desk I decided to put the cord through the desk and coming out the back. However there are a few challenges in this. Inside the hollow desk there was cardboard inserts, most likely to help keep the desk integrity, but makes it difficult to thread a cord through. Also the back/side pieces of the desk is thicker then the top and bottom sheet. This required some...innovative thinking of how to drill through the wood without proper tools. Likes just say that an Mountaineering Ice Axe does work well.

The thick desk back proved difficult to drill through.

Drilling through the inside of the desk with a BBQ shish kabob stick worked well for the cardboard inserts.

How to tread a “BBQ Shish Kabob Stick” with a “iPhone Cable” just as easy as a thread and needle.

Step 5) Glue!

Now you need to actually make the dock and the cable one piece and fit together. The best solution for this was some glue. I looked around the house and found some domestic cement. I also filled down the edges of the ipod connector so it would fit the hole of the dock adaptor a little bit better, and before I glued anything I fit all the pieces together including the iphone just to make sure they all fit. NOTE be careful with what glue you use, some of the stronger ones can melt the plastic if you use too much. Try a test spot before layering the glue on.

And there you have it! Just glue the top dock adaptor to the desk and you have your very own desk adaptor made with items around the house!

If you use this guide I would love to see your work, just leave a comment below and share some links to the photos of your dock set up! Also if your looking for in desk dock ideas, Belkin has released a new line of products (here) that follow this idea, but they don’t really solve the solution $35+ for a dock.

-rb