I recently invested in a pair of studio quality headphones, and decided that I needed a decent headphone stand. I wasn't going to just leave them sit on a table top or put them over the lid of my laptop, I wanted to make some type of a stand. I had a general idea of how to build a headphone stand, as the design is rather simple. Wood base, shaft and a post. however, I didn't want this to come out cheesy, so I looked around head-fi.org, and flickr for headphone stand designs. I eventually decided to go with a headphone stand design that was on flickr. flickr_link I really liked the simplicity of the headphone stand, and that it emphasized a stained wooden design. This fellow on flickr apparently sold these stands, but as of right now, has stopped doing so. There weren't any dimensions posted, so I safely estimated appropriate dimensions by using my headphones as a placement measurement.
Headphone Stand Project
First off, I had to gather materials for this project. I went ahead and searched for some dowels, 2x4's and 1x6's. I ended up settling on a 2x3, a 1x6 left from my old dormfan, and some old broom handles. Here's a picture of the broom handles sanded and cut to an appropriate size. The top headphone rest took a very long time to perfect, as I worked my way down from a square 2x3 with hand tools and a small vibrating sander.
The base was a bit tricky to get right as all the bits I had were spade bits and none of them were greater than 1 inch in diameter. I needed a drill bit just a hair larger than 1 and an 1/8 inches to make the brook dowels fit. Why couldn't broom handles just be 1 inch in diameter!
However, I could not use spade bits as they would leave holes in the base below the hole, and I did not want to drill all the way through the base. Thus, I ended up buying a forstner bit 1in in diameter. I could not find a 1 and 1/8 in diameter forstner bit anywhere.
Since 1in wasn't enough, I decided to use my Dremel to split the difference. The Dremel attachment becomes VERY useful here, and it provided you a lot more stability than holding the Dremel itself. I would highly recommend using this.
If you don't have one, use the small Dremel hand attachment which looks similar to a portable drill handle, but smaller. You want all the stability you can get so you don't make the holes elliptical. That would make the base look quite odd, and offer too much play for the dowels. You don't want your headphone stand to sway in the wind. In this case, feel free to practice all you want on scrap wood.