Kerf Bending for a Monitor Stand

I was using a store bought monitor stand that only raised my monitors by 4”. That was definitely not enough lift for me. I decided to make my own and experiment with kerf bending at the same time as I had seen some good pieces show up on r/woodworking. Menard’s had some random hardwood in stock that was actually straight and so a 1”x12” piece of poplar came home. I decided to space the cuts 1/2″ apart on center and leaving about 1/8” of wood.

Making the cuts with my circular saw.

I laid out the cuts and then used my circular saw along with a board for a guide. I was going for somewhere around 75 to 80 degrees since I felt that would cover any mistakes better than a full 90 degrees.

After cutting I brought it to the basement and used my bar clamps to gently bend it into position after filling each kerf cut with glue.

The glue up. Ignore the mess. My daughter was down there painting a made a giant mess.

I let it sit overnight in the clamps and then very slowly removed them. There was quite a bit of excess glue so I sanded for what felt like hours. For the finish I decided to go with a wipe on poly.

The final product.

It works great. Originally it was about 4” taller, but that was giving me a sore neck. A quick trip to the saw and that was taken care of.