Easels

Materials & Costs

4 8ft lengths of 2"x1" pine $4.97 each

16 #5 2" wood screws (I think they were #5...they were the skinniest we could find to try to prevent the wood from cracking)  $2.19/16pk
3 hinges (1 per easel) $2/2pk
6 screw-in hooks (2 per easel) already had these but I don't imagine they're expensive
Wood Stain $6.97 (ours was a combination stain and polyurethane in one)
Fine sand paper $0.49/sheet
Fine steel wool $1.63 (check your stain to see if you need this or not, the combo stain we used did)
Gloves (for staining) $3/12pk
Enough jute/string/chain to make your easels stand at the angle you want, we used about 5ft for all 3 easels we made
Circular saw
Drill
Screwdriver

We got all the materials at Rona for around $40.  This project is not difficult and as long as you have a little logic should be quick to do.  We did this without any instructions, just an image in Ryan's head that looked something like this:

1. Cut the wood into appropriate lengths.  You'll need 2 front legs the same length, one back leg an inch or 2 shorter, a shelf and a back brace.  For our small easels, the front legs were 17", back leg was 12 3/4", shelf was 11 3/4" and the brace was about 5".  Proportionally speaking, the shelf was much closer to the bottom of the legs on the small easels than on the big one.

2. Determine how high up your legs you want the shelf to be.  Drill pilot holes in the middle of each leg here so you can drill through the leg into the back of the shelf.

3. Drill pilot holes in the back of the shelf so that it will sit with the amount of overhang you want on either side of the easel.  Attach this to the legs.

4. Bring the tops of the legs together so that their edges meet, screw the back brace to the top at the back to keep them this way.  We found it helpful to put 2 screws on one side so that the whole thing couldn't pivot.

5. Screw one side of the hinge to the top of the back leg and the other side to the middle of the back brace (again helpful to drill pilot holes) going slow to decrease your chances of cracking the wood.

6. Screw one hook into the back of the shelf in the middle and the other one into the back leg so that you can connect the 2 with jute/string/chain etc. We did one facing up and one facing down to decrease the chance that the string would slip off.

7. Stain your easel.

8. Once its dry, if you're using jute or string, tie a loop in each end of a piece long enough that your easel will open at the angle you want and slip it onto the 2 hooks.  If you're using chain, cut a piece long enough to slip onto both hooks.

9. Enjoy your easel :)

Big Easel

Little Easel

After Being Stained