Recycled Serving Tray - Off the Cuff

A serving tray can be any shape, any size you desire, and since I am using recycled materials to make this one I choose a simple rectangle 500 mm long by 280 mm wide (the 280 mm was determined by the width of the recycled wood I had on hand.) If you are going to make something similar then it depends what you have on hand and what condition your recycled wood is in. I lucked out and had every thing go as planned.

The old head board I had was a solid piece of Rimu and in really good condition. My original plan was to cut in half and put a strip of pine in to break the solid look. Like I did on my chopping board. After chopping to size and sanding it, and then seeing the grain I could not bring myself to cutting it half again and decided to keep it as whole piece.

For the carry handles I had some old cupboard door handles that I used. Measured the distance between the holes and drill the holes on the tray. The handles can be anything and you could shape your own from wood if so desired.

The thin strips I use for the edging were off cuts lying around from my cross cut sled which was from other recycled Rimu. I had to get these off cuts even, and the same height and thickness. I used the table saw for both cuts, but you could do the first cut on the table saw and then pass through the thicknesser as well.

I proceeded to cut the edging by hand, using bench hook and junior hacksaw. If I did some of these on the mitre saw there was a chance that the small off cutts could go flying since the pieces were so fine. I then simply glued and clamped them onto the board. I was able to clamp with no major issues, though thinking about it, it would have been easier to have glued in place and then placed a some ply over top and clamped them all together like a big sandwich.

Using the rubber feet off and old metal serving tray and attaching them 50mm in from the corners, the tray was read to spray with lacquer. Now for all the safety police out there and being food safe this is a serving tray and food will not be in directly on the tray. Once lacquer dries and goes off it is pretty food safe anyway.

The lacquer really enhances the Rimu and its grain...

Regards
Nighthawk