Prototyped a Tray

Hadn’t felt creative lately, and it seemed that a lot of what I’m making doesn’t have much practical value. I guess this is an antidote.

I’d been playing with box generators (I especially like https://en.makercase.com/), so this was an outgrowth. A low, wide open-topped box starts to look like a tray, so I grafted on some handles in Illustrator and…

Here’s the finished product and some WIP shots. I notice all of the imperfections, but it looks good overall and has some heft.

This is cut from cheap Home Depot ply, nominally 1/4”. The joints aren’t particularly tight, so it’s all bonded with wood glue.

I used an orbital sander to take off the char and de-sharpen the edges, and took a nice gray stain to it, then sealed with an acrylic spray.

I laid in some mesh-matrix glass kitchen tile and grouted. This is pre-polish and seal, so the tiles look dull here.

I made the inside measurements of the tray to fit this plan, and the outside measurements consider the max size of the GF bed. Dimensions are 18.5” x 10” x 1” (about 2” high at the handle tops).

Here’s the cut file if you want it. You may see fit issues if the thickness of your material deviates too much.

18.5x10x1 Fingerjoint Tray.pdf (45.6 KB)