For a Father’s Day gift, a friend wanted to give her husband a guitar stand without spending hundreds of dollars. This took 2 hours to design and build. It cost only the price of the IVAR shelving unit. I used scrap wood for the braces. The wood used in the IVAR unit is soft and weak once cut into and compromised. It needed to be reinforced with braces. I made some out of scrap wood, but you could use metal braces from a store.
IKEA item used:
- IVAR Shelving Unit
- IVAR Shelves
Materials and tools:
- Jigsaw
- Compass (for drawing circle)
- Random orbital sander
- Measuring tape
- Drill and bits
How to hack a guitar stand from the IVAR unit
1. Measure and mark the cut-outs for the guitar neck. Mine are 3″ wide and 10″ deep, with a half circle in the middle of the shelf. They are spaced evenly across length of the top shelf. I cut out four. You could make less or more, depending on your guitar needs.
2. Using a jigsaw, make your cuts.
3. Make and attach braces for the top of the top shelf. These should stretch from the back of the shelf to close to the front of the shelf. These braces are added to keep the top shelf of the guitar stand strong. They are completely necessary. Do not skip this step.
4. Make and add cleats on the second shelf from the top. These are 1 1/2″ wide and 16″ long. They are placed 5″ apart. The cleats are added to keep the guitars upright.
5. Sand all until desired smoothness. I used a random orbital with 220 grit, and sanded the edges of the wood by hand.
6. For this shelf, the amps go on the bottom since they are heaviest. The pedals go on the next shelf up from the bottom. The guitars go above that. The IVAR shelving unit comes with 5 shelves, but we only used 4.
~ by C. Sanborn
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