Let's start by preparing the wood. The magazine holder is constructed from a left panel, a right panel and a back panel. We started with rough lumber that needed to be surfaced; if you are using lumber that is already surfaced, then you can omit most of this step.

After removing the ends of the board that were weakened by checking, we cut our 6" (15cm) wide rough cherry lumber into two pieces, one 20" (51cm) for the back panel, and one 16" (39cm) for the two side panels. Note that we are surfacing the board for the side panels now, when it is big enough to run through the jointer and thickness planer. We surfaced the lumber by jointing one face, surface planing the opposing face so that it is flat and parallel to the first face; then we jointed one edge and ripped the opposing edge so that the surfaces were flat and square to eachother.

Note that the back panel will be about 1" (25mm) wider than your two dowel rods, so if you shorten it a little, you may be able to get by with the 36" (1m) dowel rods that are also commonly available.