Not to long ago, I made my Husband a Headphone stand for his gaming headphones so they can be stored safely when not being used. It turned out great but I wanted to try and make another one for me.   I wanted mine to have flashing LED lights which can be plugged into your computer.  The lights can be switch on and off by remote control.

This is a short clip of the LED lights working.

How to make an LED headphone stand

**This post may contain affiliate links. This means I earn a small commission on links used at no extra cost to you. Please see my disclosure policy for more information.**

Make a template

I still had the template that I used from the last headset for this project too. You can put the template on your wood and trace it around the outline. You need to cut 3 pieces the same, I used a jigsaw and left a 2 mm excess which I would sand around with a benchtop sander later. This was the only way I could think of to get all the sides the same. 

Next, I used an orbital sander and 120 grit sanding discs to remove all the old stains and varnish. I had the outline of the hole in the middle.  You can cut the holes in the centre using a hole saw.

Because I wanted my hole in the middle of all the pieces to be the same, I used some clamps and clamped them all together first. It works better to drill halfway through and then turn it over and cut the other half to have a cleaner end cut.

To clean up the inside of the hole and make it all nice and smooth I used a flap sanding wheel attached to the drill. It fits in the hole perfectly you will have to use sandpaper and do it by hand if you don’t have flap wheels.

Adding the perspex

I wanted to have 2 sheets of perspex in between the pieces of wood. This will allow you to see the light from the LED lights from all sides. I ordered some A4 clear Plastic Perspex Acrylic not thinking at the time that it would not be big enough. Because of this, I had to change the design to a more complicated one. So ideally order perspex to the correct size so you don’t have the drama of cutting into the wood. The LED lights that I bought had multiple functions on them like flashing, dimming in and out or you can choose just one colour. 

Because I had started the project I did not want to stop and order new perspex.  I wanted to try cutting the perspex I already had to fit the wood.  Lay the wood on the perspex and made a pencil line around the wood. You will need a scroll saw for this step, I did try a jigsaw but it kept cracking the perspex.   I did not cut all the way to the edges because I was going to sand then later on the benchtop sander.

To solve the problem of the perspex being the wrong size I inlaid the perspex into the wood.  I did this by measuring the thickness of my perspex which was 3 mm and set the depth of the bit on the router table to 3 mm. I used a straight router bit and routered out the 3 mm of wood from both sides of the middle section.

You can ignore this step if you have the correct size Perspex.  I used an orbital sander and a 120 grit sanding disc to smooth the middle section out.

I did a test fit to make sure the perspex fitted correctly apart from the 2 mm excess overhang.

Fitting the lights

I was not too sure how I was going to fit the lights into the inside.  At first, I put the lights around the middle circle but the wires then came out the back of the circle which looked really nasty. And the light only shined through the top. I used a jigsaw to cut a section of the wood from the middle of the middle piece. The lights go in the bottom of the stand and up and around the inside of the circle and back to the bottom.  I cut the LED light strip to size. 

Fitting the perspex

Next, you line up the centre hole up and clamped it all together.  I used the centre hole because the sides were not matching yet. I used a drill and a drill bit the size of my decorative bolts.  You can drill through all the layers except the front at the same time so they all lined up. I did not want the front to have the bolts visible but in hindsight, I think it looks better with the bolts.  So I would advise you to go all the way through and use the insert nut at the back.

I did not do that I drilled a hole only partway through the front so it lined up with the other holes. 

Putting the LED headphone stand together

I found nuts that would fit on the bolts that I had. To fit the nuts you can drill a hole slightly bigger than the nut. I mixed up some epoxy glue and put a layer around the outside of the hole.  Only use a small amount or it will pool at the bottom and fill up the threads of the nut. I put the nuts in place and hit them gently with a hammer until they were flush and tight in the wood. I waited for the epoxy glue to dry before I bolted it all together.

Sand the surface even

With all the pieces bolted together, I used the benchtop sander to sand all the layers and the perspex to the same size using the pen outline as a guide. To sand the arch at the bottom I used the arch on the top belt to smooth them out.

I took it all apart again numbering the layers so I would know how to put it back together again. The wood was stained using dark mahogany stain and I added 3 coats of spray satin polyurethane to the exposed bits.  The LED lights came with adhesive tape on them I removed the tape and fit them to the inside of the middle piece of wood.

I put all the layers back together and tightened the bolts using an alan key. I really do regret not having the bolts all the way through. But these things happen when you make it up as you go along.  I also made a mistake somewhere down the line because one layer of perspex was slightly out at the end.

Looking for a DIY game to play with your family and friends check out this horse racing game.

More great DIY projects

This cool towel rack was made using scrap wood and old horseshoes.

Another scrap wood project, this wooden barn quilt is made up of small pieces of wood cut to size and put together like a jigsaw.

If you are looking for any of the items used in this project, please consider using our links. By clicking on the links we will earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.  Which helps us come up with new and exciting ideas to share with you.