Cat Tray

I am a cat lover and this combined with my hobby of handcrafting will result in a lot of great things for our cat.

So there was the issue: The cat had only a ordinary plate and some bowls for the food. It was always messy, a mix of different bowles and plates lying around.

We wanted some nice tray, easy to handle and clean which can hold the dishes and not made from plastic. The bowls needed to be ceramics, replaceable and easy to wash in a dishwasher. Someone has told me that it is better for the cat if the bowl is higher, not sitting on the ground therefore we wanted them to be raised.

After collecting some ideas I decided to make it from bamboo wich is very resistant, eco friendly and easy to clean.
The cheapest way to get bamboo board here to buy kitchen cutting boards for a few bucks. I designed a tray with 3 bowls, one for water one for dry food and the big one is for wet or any other food, tidbits. They are from IKEA, cheap and always replaceable. Anyway I bought 6 of them, just incase :) 

Step 1: The Work

As a guy who loves modern tools it was obvious to use laser cutter to get the work done. First I took the sizes from the bowls, and made the files for the cutter. These kitchen boards have a little handle on them I decided to keep those and use it as a side of the tray. For the cutting lines I took the precise measurements from the boards as well.

The cutting was fast and easy. Because the laser burns the wood at the edges and our little cat is unbearably picky for smells I used  my handtool to sand off all the burned edges. 

For the joints I drilled 2 mm holes in equal distance and cut small plugs from a round 2mm dia wood stick and inserted to the holes and then I glued everything together.

Again, considering our little spoiled home lion nose, I could not use lacquer or any artificial material for the finishing I used olive oil to make it more shiny, desirable and water resistant. Oh... and eco friendly. :)

At the end I added some round self-sticking felt pads to sit on the parquet firmly. 

Step 2: Enjoy Your Meal!

Here it is, the cat tray what he liked at first! Thanks to the spare bowls I can use always clean dishes to feed the cat. If the tray gets dirty, just wash it off with a wet sponge.

Bon appetite!

P.S: OK, maybe the garnish was a bit of an overstatement. :)