As many of you know, Mon began studying law last year, through Deakin University off-campus.  People have asked about how her eyes are going with all that reading, how her brain is going holding all that info in, how her hand feels after all the writing and so on.

The real killer though is on the back and neck.  Hunched over the desk perusing case records, academic textbooks and acts of parliament for hours at a time, it’s the upper vertebrae that take the beating.  We looked into what book holding devices are available, but it turns out not much.  There are lots like the recipe book holders for your kitchen that tilt your book up at desk height, but very few that lift the height of the book to an ergonomic height. You can get the excellent looking Levo Book Holder, however the standalone version is ~$450; the desk mounted one was less, but still quite expensive and also it was a several month wait to get them.

So while it can sometimes be a several month wait to get me to make or even fix something, that seemed to be the way to go.  So when Dad was down on the weekend, he and I threw some ideas around, particular the rail and wingnut setup that Dad knew of from my brother Dan’s art easel. We went to the shed, looked at what we had available, then had an excuse for a trip to Bunnings for a sausage in bread some wood and other bits I needed. Unfortunately, Mum and Dad had to go home before we could put it together, but I finished it off today and, well, it works.  There’s a lot more love in it than craftsmanship, but it also didn’t fall over under the weight of the Annotated Criminal Legislation of Victoria, so I’m calling it a success.

It holds heavy legal tomes

The finish leaves some to be desired, but I wanted to make sure it was fit for purpose before doing anything like that, so that any adjustments can be made without scratching the varnish etc :)  There’s a 20″ iMac behind it for scale – as you can see it’s not small but it’s not uncomfortably huge I hope.  You can adjust the height of the actual holder with bolt and wingnut setups, that slide between the rails on the sides.  It can go reasonably high, as Dad thought it could be useful in the kitchen that way too.

Loosen nut, slide up or down, tighten nut. Not complicated!

You can see there where the wingnut has bitten the soft pine, so I’ll get some washers to go back there at some point.

It’s also got some flexibility as far as the tilt goes, by loosening or tightening the rope that binds the front and back legs.  There’s not a lot of range for that though, as adjusting it too vertical will compromise stability – front and back legs would be too close together.  Likewise tilting it back further increases the footprint on the desk pretty quickly.  Dad and I had talked about options for tilting, but in the end decided that it was making it overly complex, especially since Mon had said she wasn’t too worried about that.

Book holder is admiring itself...

So there it is, designed from scratch and custom built for my lovely wife.