Serving tray

[Duane N]

I watched a video of a guy who built a serving tray using Spalted Maple and I liked how it looked.  I didn't have any Spalted Maple laying around but I had two pieces of Ambrosia Maple so I used one piece instead.  I also added handles to mine using some Walnut.  My neighbor bought it even before I finished it she liked it so much and said it would be nice to use this on her new deck we recently help build for her and her husband.

   

   


I used a jig saw to cut all of the curves and a belt sander to fine tune the cuts including the handles.  I had to buy the walnut dowel stock.  I would liked to have used some walnut spindles but couldn't find any at my local Woodcraft store so I went with the dowels. Finished using General Finishes Salad Bowl finish.

[BrokenOlMarine]

It turned out beautiful. I like the walnut with the maple. I use it a lot with spaulted maple. Not surprised it sold in progress. 

[Redman]

That's great looking.

[giradman]

Hi Duane - beautiful tray - love using ambrosia maple - have made a number of picture frames.  Dave

[Randy C]

I watched a video of a guy who built a serving tray using Spalted Maple and I liked how it looked.  I didn't have any Spalted Maple laying around but I had two pieces of Ambrosia Maple so I used one piece instead.  I also added handles to mine using some Walnut.  My neighbor bought it even before I finished it she liked it so much and said it would be nice to use this on her new deck we recently help build for her and her husband.


Duane- may I ask a question.

How do you line up the dowel holes in the handle with the holes in the tray so that they are drilled in the exact position that they need to be to line up? Seems like this would be hard to do. Looks very nice and I would like to try building one.

thanks

[Bob10]

Not Duane but I imagine you could clamp the pieces together and drill them from the bottom using a depth stop.  Probably easier if you did it while everything was still square

[giradman]

@ Randy - I use dowel centers (shown below) quite a lot - I likely would have drilled the non-through holes in the handles w/ a drill press, then place the dowel centers, position on the tray and tap the handles gently w/ rubber mallet - finally drill non-through holes in the tray, if you may not want the dowels to show on the bottom.  Just another suggestion - Dave

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[Randy C]

@ Randy - I use dowel centers (shown below) quite a lot - I likely would have drilled the non-through holes in the handles w/ a drill press, then place the dowel centers, position on the tray and tap the handles gently w/ rubber mallet - finally drill non-through holes in the tray, if you may not want the dowels to show on the bottom.  Just another suggestion - Dave

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Thanks guys, both good ideas. I never even knew there was such a thing as dowel centers.

[Duane N]

@ Randy - I use dowel centers (shown below) quite a lot - I likely would have drilled the non-through holes in the handles w/ a drill press, then place the dowel centers, position on the tray and tap the handles gently w/ rubber mallet - finally drill non-through holes in the tray, if you may not want the dowels to show on the bottom.  Just another suggestion - Dave

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I wish I knew these things existed...it would have saved me laying out the holes on the template.  Nice suggestion.

[Duane N]

Thanks everyone. 

The way I lined up the dowel holes was by using a paper template for the handles and laid the holes out on the template then transferred the holes accordingly.  I just had to make sure I kept the right side of the template on the flat board and the opposite side of the template on the underside of the handles.  I actually messed up because I only intended on using 2 dowels per handle but drilled an extra hole when I first started so to fix my mistake I used 4 dowels per handle.