Splitography Plank

⊕ The finished result.

I recently bought a Splitography, and I thought I'd make something for it just like I did for the Georgi, except that I didn't want to mount it on another tripod, since I already have one. I intend on using the Splitography away from my laptop with my tablet, so something like a plank for it to go on and rest on my lap would be really nice when I don't have enough desk space.

My initial idea was to have a plank of wood with a shallow indentation for the Splitography to go in. I had even wanted to make it at an angle so that I could tent it, but I figured that the thickness of the wood required for a ten degree tent would be far too thick. So I just decided to route a flat bottom. I also intended on using magnets to secure the halves to the board and I still want to do that, but I don't have any spare magnets at hand.

I knew I was going to use a router to carve the indentation, so I managed to borrow a router from a friend. I designed a template in FreeCAD so that I can just push the router base against the edges of the template so that I can get the desired shape.

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I took the shape of the Splitography base, and I put circles of a quarter inch in diameter at the corners. I placed rectangles with dimensions of the router base centred at the circles, and connected the corners of those rectangles to make a path that the router base should follow. I printed it out one to one, and glued the sheet of paper onto a thin piece of wood (it's the sort that's used in picture frame backs). I cut out the hole with a scroll saw, and you can see the resulting template below:

⊕ Routing the plywood.

⊕ It's really nice to be able to steno on my lap.

You can see how following the edge of the template with the router base will carve the shape of the Splitography. Note that the single one closer to the bottom left corner is actually a mistake. I realised only after I had routed it completely that the template was flipped the wrong way around!

Overall, I'm quite happy with this, and I would recommend making something like this if you have a Splitography. I won't provide the template file because that depends on the router you use and the dimensions of the base. It's relatively easy to create your own templates in CAD software.

And as for the Splitography itself, I have some opinions about it but so far I like it a lot. I do intend on making a review between the Georgi and the Splitography, but that might be the subject of a YouTube video. And it's weeks down the line as I have other ideas in mind for enhancing the Splitography which I want to be able to discuss.