I turned a 2x3 stud into a serving tray, without drawing any plans.

I've made a number of serving trays over the years each one is a little bit different and each one has its own set of challenges what I wanted to do on this one is challenge myself by making one using a two by three this is just a really cheap piece of construction grade Pine that I picked up at Home Depot I think the key to making serving trays is to keep them as shallow as possible and to make them as lightweight as possible because the weight is going to be coming from whatever you're carrying you don't want the tray itself to be really heavy so what I want to do is cut this down into half inch thick boards the thing about using two by threes or two by fours is that they have those rounded edges that you need to cut off and square up so I'm trying to cut the face of these boards my saw blade doesn't go high enough to cut through that full width of the board so I'm just cutting it in a little more than halfway and then flipping the board around and cutting the rest of it when making a cut like this with a board on its Edge I just want to pay extra attention that it's supported so that it doesn't tip over especially into the blade so I'm using my homemade push block and push stick to keep the work piece running straight and true now that I've got a little bit shaved off of the faces of these boards I can set my rip fence to cut out the half inch thick boards here again I cut halfway through then flip the board over and cut out the remainder the push block here is doing most of the work to keep the board pressed down and against the fence I like to use the push stick mostly to help guide the board and keep that Leading Edge pressed down and here's what that single eight foot long two by three yielded me these first pieces are just scrapped these are going to get thrown away those were those faces with the rounded edges and then I've got a chunk of two by three it's about three feet long or so that can save that for future projects and then I got eight half inch boards when I'm Milling up boards to use for a project I always like to have extra pieces on hand to use for tests or if I screw something up and spoiler alert I'm going to be using some of those pieces for just that purpose here in a minute but at this point what I'm doing is I'm just looking at all of these boards and I'm just trying to find the four best pieces for the sides of the tray when I use Pine Lumber I usually like to find the pieces that have something interesting going on in it either it's a knot or an unusual grain pattern and use those it just adds more visual interest to the project rather than just a plain old straight grain one of the things I always like to preach to Woodworkers is the value of having a set of plans to work with if you just take the time to design a project with detailed measurements it really does save a ton of time and potentially wasted Lumber and normally that's what I do but this time I thought it would be a fun challenge just to see what I could come up with by by just winging it I've got scrap wood and time so the stakes are pretty low really what I find is that this involves a lot more time in my head just staring at boards and imagining what the dimensions and the features might be on the final tray I know that I want to use a quarter inch thick piece of plywood for the base I've got plenty of scrap pieces so this first piece looked like it would fit but the grain is going in the short Direction which to me it just seems weird it's I guess it's a visual choice but to me the grain should run the long Direction although you could certainly make a case for running it the other way I suppose I decided it would be interesting to make the two shorter pieces beveled or angled out at a 20 degree angle this will add some visual interest to the project and it's going to come with a set of challenges and I'm kind of looking forward to solving since those two end pieces are going to be leaning out 20 degrees I need to make it a 20 degree bevel on the bottom edge of each of them [Music] I want the tray bottom to sit into a Groove all along the inside of the side pieces and this is going to be my first challenge is that on those two short end pieces I'm going to need that Groove to also be beveled at a 20 degree angle the problem that I'm facing is that that beveled edge of the board kind of rides a little bit under my rip fence my rip fence doesn't go all the way to the table top and even if I were to attach a sacrificial board and make sure that that's flush to the table I still don't like that little pointy Edge against the fence it just seems to have a tendency to slip under it even in the slightest bit which will make that Groove off the solution here is something I don't do very often and that's to use my rip fence on the other side of the blade now I can set it right where I want that group to cut and I'll have that squared Edge running along the fence this is one of those things where I just keep moving that fence over ever so slightly to widen that Groove until I get a nice tight fit I also need to cut grooves in the two long sides of the tray these aren't going to be beveled so I need to put my saw blade back to its 90 degree position first I'll just square up their edges and I can set it up against that Groove I cut on the beveled piece and make a mark where that Groove needs to be on this longer piece and this is where I'm making a really dumb mistake and I'd be lying if I said this is the first time I've made this mistake these grooves turned out great the bottom panel fits in perfectly but I shouldn't have cut that Groove all the way through that side piece because it's going to show on the end so this needs to be a stopped Groove and usually when I make a mistake like that I stop and I think uh how can I fix it and I was coming up with all these ways of you know putting in a little shim in there and sanding it off to fill in that Gap but you know I've got those extra pieces that I cut ahead of time I can just use those and just do it the right way and that means using my router oh but wait as I was setting this up it occurred to me that I need to cut the ends of these boards at a 20 degree angle to batch the bevel on the short pieces and I got to do that first before cutting the groove not having measured drawings and plans really forces me to stay more focused on the plan in my head and think ahead a couple of steps I'll just set up that 20 degree angle on my miter gauge and cut both boards at the same time and this is where I had to make a decision about what the length of the tray is going to be because once I've cut these grooves I won't be able to cut those sides down any further there's a little bit of a tricky cut what I have to do is keep the edge of that board pressed against the fence and then just slowly drop it down onto the router bit then I can run it through the length of the board and stop up before I get to the other end [Music] the end of that group just needs to come within a half inch of the end of the board so it'll be covered up now I can cut this plywood piece down to size I'll just kind of measure it within that Groove and cut it out [Music] and I'll do the same for the other dimension [Music] now I could actually kind of dry fit this all together and take a look at it and I wasn't really happy with the dimensions of it it looked too Square to me it looks like those end pieces need to be a little bit shorter foreign this is certainly an easy fix I can just cut out those two end boards at the same time to make them the same length [Music] yeah I think the proportions look a lot better on this but I don't like how high those sides are so I think what I'll do is just rip those down foreign [Music] I'm going to leave the two insides a little higher though because I think I want to shape those differently I think what I want to do is have it kind of high in the middle so I can make a handle and then have it curve back down it'll kind of flow back down into the other sides so what I'm doing is just trying to divide these pieces up to kind of figure out where that curve needs to be and I want to take into consideration about how long the handle needs to be something that's comfortable that you can fit four fingers into the next challenge is I want to cut out this curve but have it follow that same 20 degree bevel so I'll use my jigsaw and I'll just set the base to 20 degree bevel I'm taking one of those scrap boards and just screwing it down to my workbench and this is going to just provide extra support for the base of the jigsaw so that it doesn't tip while I'm making these cuts I need to flip that base over in the opposite direction to make the other side of that cut foreign Tools in my shop is this oscillating spindle sander I keep it on the other side of my Disc Sander when I need to use one or the other I can just flip it over on this stand if you're interested in making this stand or really any of the fixtures and tables that you see in my shop these are all part of my weekend Workshop quartz it's over at the weekendworkshop.com I'll change that spindle over to the largest one I have since those curves are pretty gentle and of course I have the same problem here is how do I get that 20 degree bevel and I think the solution is really just to kind of hold it at a 20 degree angle the bevel's already been set in place with the jigsaw so now I just kind of need to maintain that same angle it just needs to be smooth and look like it matches the other side of the board nobody who uses this tray is going to be grabbing a protractor to check that it's really 20 degree angle to make the slots for the handles I'll start by making two three quarter inch diameter holes in each piece I need these holes to be at a 20 degree angle I think how I'll do this is I'll wedge the work piece up against the fence and hold it in place with a scrap board clamped to the table the problem here is that that pointy edge of the board is dipping into the slot in my fence for the Stop block so what I'll do is I'll just flip the fence around to that smooth side I'm not going to be needing a stop block for these holes anyway foreign this worked out really well and it was super easy to set up I don't know if these are exactly 20 degree angles but it doesn't really matter I think it's really helpful to just free yourself from the mindset that everything needs to be precise [Music] and I just cut out the center part of that with my jigsaw back at my spindle sander I can smooth out the inside of that slot for a long time now I've been a proponent of learning SketchUp or some other design software for Designing woodworking projects I think it saves a lot of time and money when you have a full set of measured drawings that you can just follow in your shop but I'm starting to think that my preaching might be performing a disservice for some people we can use any design or drawing tools to any extent at any point in the process of building a project turning your ideas into reality is largely dependent upon your actual experience building projects it's perfectly reasonable to have a design for a project in your head and just start building with no plans or maybe you just need a simple pencil sketch with the overall dimensions or maybe there's a specific part of the project that you need to work out on paper before committing it to Wood design is a process that doesn't have to start in front of a computer or even use a computer at all [Music] most of the sanding on all these odd angles just needs to be done by hand mostly what I want to do is ease over all the sharp edges I don't want them all to be rounded edges like you'd get on a router I just want them to be less sharp that way the look of the bevels stays crisp foreign foreign the four sides are just glued together with butt joints which isn't very strong I'm going to reinforce them with some dowel pins foreign I'll just glue them in place and then cut them flush this is a Japanese flush trim saw it works really good for cutting these dowels flush with the face of the wood those will give the tray Extra Strength plus it adds a nice little design element I'll finish this off with several coats of satin spray lacquer foreign making this tray without having any plans was a good challenge for me I spent a large amount of time just staring at boards and trying to Envision what I wanted the tray to look like and I made a couple of mistakes that I probably could have avoided if I'd drawn up detailed plans I think it took me a lot longer to build but mostly it was a fun experience and I got to spend a lot more time in the shop I've made a few serving trays in the past so I was able to draw on those experiences and apply techniques from other projects as well to build this I could foresee some potential pitfalls and avoid a lot of them simply because I've made a gazillion projects my enjoyment might have been different if this were one of my first projects to tackle but then again I would have designed it within my existing skill set and don't get me wrong I still think that SketchUp is extremely valuable it's a great tool for helping to visualize your ideas but don't assume that it's needed for design

Channel: Steve Ramsey - Woodworking for Mere Mortals

Views: 228,406

Keywords: woodworking, woodworking project, how-to, DIY, easy woodworking, steve ramsey, WWMM, Mere Mortals, The Weekend Woodworker, woodworking plans, Free plans, wood, making, building, makers, hobby, weekend projects, Weekend Woodworker, power tools

Id: plW4bLcqjsA

Length: 20min 9sec (1209 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 04 2022