Not much to say that hasn’t already been said in my other tray posts.
All wood is 1/8” solid hardwood
Overall inner dimension 6.5” X 8.5”. Overall height 1.25” (not including feet).
All surfaces sanded to 600 grit, though that was likely overkill for two very open-grain woods.
The exploration of interesting (at least I think so) butt/finger jointed tray designs went to another iteration. I was trying to move away from just highlighting the corners as in my last couple of trays, instead going for a more “whole canvas” design that takes advantage of more of the available side area.
The canarywood brings such richness and variation, ranging from reddish to a honey gold. It really plays off the warmer parts of the wenge’s dark brown. I haven’t chosen a liner yet but am leaning toward a rich honey gold cowhide leather that I picked up at Tandy on Black Friday. I chose to finish the wood with mineral oil, it is completely color neutral and I wanted the wood colors to come through as simply as possible.
As I said, not much to add in terms of technical details. I’ve pretty much got my workflow down, there were no real surprises here. It’s satisfying to have a smooth process but I do miss the little challenges and problem solving that comes with entirely new projects.
EDIT: there was one new thing I tried with this design.
When butt joining delicate pieces near an edge you sometimes see overburn on sharp corners that make it look like an unsightly gap is present on the butted edges.
To fix this I extended my joints past the final edge, making a “bump” where the faces come together.
Fortunately, hardwoods are still ahead for me. I’ve just started playing with padauk, and it’s such a hard, clean burning wood…holds nice crisp detail. (And I definitely enjoy the discovery process best.) There are still soooo many things to play with. And I like to take my time and savor it as I go.
Currently stuck in that myself…not enough time to really devote to a whole new learning segment, so i fall back on forum Q&A. I need to carve out some serious F360 time instead of just piddling with it. There is much to make, and full blown parameterization to puzzle out.
I have to remind myself not to chase thousandths too much, you can screw with dimensions all night if you’re not careful!
Lately I kerf adjust to 0.006” for 1/8” wood and call it done. It’s a nice medium tight glue fit.
I used to be all “friction fit or die” (my New Hampshire roots coming out), but I’ve backed off in favor of massive time savings.
Great work, as usual. I know you used a wave pattern, but it kinda comes across as tentacles when you take the two corners coming toward each other. Wonder how hard the fit would be if you added some suckers…
