Two serving trays

[Mike Henderson]

Attached are pictures of two serving trays I completed recently. One is octagonal with curly bubinga laid in an eight segment sunburst with a walnut border and walnut sides. The banding is commercial.
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The back is laid with claro walnut in an eight segment sunburst. What looks like a circle in the walnut on the back is just in the veneer. Laying it in a sunburst made it look like a circle. When you look at it in person, you don't see the circle - it only seems to appear in photographs.
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The other is a rectangular tray with walnut burl laid in a four way match, with a walnut border and walnut sides. It's banding is also commercial. The back was laid in regular walnut.
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I rubbed the lacquer on the main panels to a glass finish so it was hard to get the pictures because of reflections but I think you can see them fairly well.

Mike

[David Christopher]

Mike both are beautiful......are the burls solid stock or veneered

BTW very nice joints

[Greg Cole]

Very nice Mike.
Excellent job on the veneer as always.;)

[Mike Henderson]

Mike both are beautiful......are the burls solid stock or veneered

BTW very nice joints
The panels are all veneer. The only "solid" wood is the sides. The substrate is 1/4" MDF.

Mike

[Joe Scharle]

Too pretty to use!

[John Schreiber]

Mike,

I've seen and admired a number of your pieces here on the Creek. I've just got a "commission" to make an ottoman tray.

Is there an other post where you have more detail on the assembly methods? I'm especially curious about how you capture the bottom. Do you allow for movement or can you glue to the bottom because you use MDF? Do you use any reinforcement on the corners? What would you do differently if the tray sides were a good bit taller?

Thanks,

[Dan T Jones]

Mike,
I'm in the process of a cherry tray. What were the overall dimensions of the rectangular tray? Your proportions look good.

[Matt Day]

Very nice! The octagonal veneer sort of looks like flower petals (rose-ish).

I'd like to experiment with a sunburst veneer pattern at some point.

[Carroll Courtney]

Mike that is truly nice work.I have bookmark your website and visit it often,lots of nice work and love the carving---Carroll

[John Gregory]

What can I saw but WOW!!

[Mike Henderson]

Mike,
I'm in the process of a cherry tray. What were the overall dimensions of the rectangular tray? Your proportions look good.
The rectangular tray is 20" x 14" outside dimensions. The low part of the sides are 1.5" so they stick above the base of the tray by about 1".

If I recall, the handle sides are 2.25" or 2.5".

I used to make the sides higher but this client insisted on low sides - and I like it! I'll continue to use those low sides in the future.

Mike

[glenn bradley]

Wow, those are sweet.

[Mike Henderson]

Mike,

I've seen and admired a number of your pieces here on the Creek. I've just got a "commission" to make an ottoman tray.

Is there an other post where you have more detail on the assembly methods? I'm especially curious about how you capture the bottom. Do you allow for movement or can you glue to the bottom because you use MDF? Do you use any reinforcement on the corners? What would you do differently if the tray sides were a good bit taller?

Thanks,
Let's see if I can think of issues I encountered. To make the bottom, draw a circle on your base material, then use dividers to step off eight sides. Mark the landing points of your divider, then draw a straight line between adjacent landing points. That will give you your octagon.

For an eight sided tray, the joints will be 22.5*. Since you have twice the number of sides as a rectangle, the angle is half of the 45* you'd have for a rectangle.

The thing I was concerned about was putting the sides together and getting them lined up, and not having them fly apart when I clamped them. I used those small FF biscuits that PC makes. I cut the slots on my router table and described how I did it here (http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?p=1201647#post1201647) (see last post in thread).

I used MDF for the bottom of the tray so I'm not worried about expansion and contraction. I cut a groove (to fit the bottom) in each side piece (I actually cut it before I slice the pieces for the sides - it's just quicker). I go up 3/16" from the bottom to the groove. I used to use 1/4" but I find 3/16" is strong enough. This captures the bottom and holds it fine. No need to glue it. However, it can "rattle" so when you do your finishing, I make sure some lacquer (which is what I use) gets into the groove from the bottom to glue it in and stop the rattle.

But finish your tray panel before you glue the sides on, especially if you're going to rub out the finish. It's soooo much easier.

I can't think of anything else but ask away if I forgot something. I have a few pictures of the process but I wasn't taking enough to document it (I just took enough to show the client I was working on the project). Ask and I may have a picture if you have specific questions.

Mike

[Jim Tobias]

Mike,
You will have to make matching coatsers because these are too nice to set a drink on!! Joking aside, those are beautiful. There si a whole lot of veneer work in creating the veneer patterns on those. I hope the owners of them appreciate the craftsmanship that went into making them.

Jim

[Rich Neighbarger]

Very nice!

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Mike,

I don't know that I have ever seen prettier trays nor will I ever.

Very, very nicely done Sir!

[John Schreiber]

Let's see if I can think of issues I encountered. . . .
Thank you Mike. Have you ever tried a tray with the sides angled outward? Mine will be rectangular with the sides angled outward and I don't trust my skills to make dovetails in a double angled corner. I am thinking about using dovetail splines to reinforce the corner after I have assembled it with biscuits. I was thinking of a jig much like yours for the biscuits.

I'm not confident enough to try marquetry. I'm planning to use mahogany plywood for the bottom and solid mahogany with some carving for the sides.

[Mike Henderson]

Thank you Mike. Have you ever tried a tray with the sides angled outward? Mine will be rectangular with the sides angled outward and I don't trust my skills to make dovetails in a double angled corner. I am thinking about using dovetail splines to reinforce the corner after I have assembled it with biscuits. I was thinking of a jig much like yours for the biscuits.

I'm not confident enough to try marquetry. I'm planning to use mahogany plywood for the bottom and solid mahogany with some carving for the sides.
I haven't tried making a tray with outward sloping sides but I would think the problem would be cutting the miters and clamping it up.

In the past, when I had to cut angled miters (for other projects), I would estimate the angles on my miter saw (I cut the wood flat) and make a few cuts with scrap. My guess is that you don't need some exact outward slope, just that you want the sides to slope outward. A bit of experimentation will give you a fit at the corners, with a slope that will work.

Regarding clamping, I'd probably use biscuits (like you suggested) to keep the pieces aligned while they were clamped. The dovetail splines would just be decorative once you have the biscuits in. If it's going to be eight sided, the jig I made should work well, but if you're going to use large biscuits (size 20) you may not have a slot cutter big enough to cut the slots - the blade on a biscuit joiner is about 4" in diameter. If you use the FF biscuits, a slot cutter should work fine - the blade for the FF biscuits is 2", which is about the size of a slot cutter.

To cut the groove for the bottom, dry clamp your sides (with the biscuits installed to help hold it together - use packing tape to hold the joints together) and set up a slot cutter with the depth of cut you want (make sure to allow for the slope when you select your bearing for the slot cutter). Then drop your assembly over the slot cutter and make your cut around the inside. That will give you the proper angle for the groove. You'll have rounded inside corners in the groove but you can clean them out with a small chisel. And doing it that way makes sure your grooves line up.

Good luck and post your work when you finish.

Mike