A while back I was on a flight to California with my wife. As is my usual practice, I was reading a Woodsmith magazine enroute. I was reading an article on building a Walnut Tray. My wife saw it and said, “I want one”! That was the impetus for this project.
To make this work you have to start with a 2” thick piece of Walnut. That is not an easy find, but I managed to locate a piece. Basically, the tray is built by cutting the piece of Walnut into two curved pieces. Making the lower half smaller, hollowing out the lower smaller half, then gluing them back together.
There is a lot of band saw work in this project, so then there is a lot of sanding out the saw marks. I used my good old Spindle Sander for this purpose. It sure saved me a lot of time. By the way, the Woodsmith project was made with Oak. My wife preferred Walnut.
When the project was finished, I sealed everything with several coats of General Satin Wipe-on Poly. It looks really good sitting on our dining room table. All and all, not a too difficult project. I would rate it at Intermediate level. Be sure and check out the photo gallery of the production process.
Doug
