Playing Card Trays - with pics

[Big Dave]

My sister asked for a couple projects that I'm finally getting around to working on. One of them is a tray to keep wayward playing cards under control - well, three of'em actually... My parents had a plastic one when I was a kid, so I used that as the starting point.

I used 5/16" stock just to give me a little more glue surface on the corners in conjunction with splines so they (hopefully...) won't fall apart during a spirited game. The divider is 1/4". After they were glued-up, I made a couple jigs for routing the sides, which I also used as a template to draw lines for rough cutting.








Once they were cut close to the layout lines I used the jigs to smooth everything up on the router table.







This worked great, but as you can see there was a little burning...



I didn't particularly feel like hand sanding all of these, and the sleeves on my oscillating spindle sander were too long. What I needed was a way to shorten the spindle, and this is what I came up with



It worked perfectly!
 I was even more impressed that the dust collection worked almost better than the regular top... 


It's made with a 3/4" laminated plywood top with a total height of ~2 1/2". The 3 1/2" hole matches the existing table, and I routed a matching 3/8" rabbet in order to use the inserts...




Like I said, it worked great!



Anyway, they turned out pretty good, I think. Two cherry, two boxelder, and one spalted maple - which is the one I'm keeping...A little adhesive backed felt from a craft store and I called them finished...
 



Thanks for lookin'!
 As always, questions and comments are always welcomed!

Dave

[Steve N]

Nice work Dave, are they just for card storage or is there a game you play from them? I figure a deck per half?

[Big Dave]

Nice work Dave, are they just for card storage or is there a game you play from them? I figure a deck per half?

Thanks, Steve! Typically one side is to draw from and the other is for the discards. 

Our "family" game is progressive rummy. You need at least two decks with four people playing, and we've had as many as 8 people sitting around the table requiring up to five decks.

[fredhargis]

Nice, but your clever trick on the spindle sander is really neat. I'll have to file that way somehow for possible future use.

[handi]

Love seeing other fo1k's jigs and fixtures! 
Great work on the trays!

[Big Dave]

Thanks, Guys!

Love seeing other fo1k's jigs and fixtures! 

Me, too, Ralph! I get a lot of inspiration from what I see on these pages...