Hey guys. How's it going? Today I’m going to be showing you how I made this
awesome “Thankful” tray. We got multiple colors of epoxy, splines on the edges, and it's all made
on the CNC. We do have plans available for it on our website, so be sure to check those out.
There's a link down in the description. Without further ado, let me show you how I made it.
Starting on a new project here to make a Thankful tray we do sell the plans on our
website so definitely check those out there. And we're getting the piece of half inch Baltic
birch plywood sucked down to the StepCraft M.1000 CNC using the vacuum table and the fine
turbo one vacuum, all available on our website. So I’m using the RC-1141 90-degree V-insert bit
here to go through and carve in the text that we want on the bottom of this tray. It's doing
a really nice job carving this as we're going cross-grain through this Baltic birch plywood,
and then plunging a quarter of an inch deep to carve out that wreath design. And this bit and
machine definitely handle that really well. So we got all of the fine details done as
well which is definitely nice with the 90-degree V-bit and that's going to leave
a nice pocket for us to put the epoxy in here for the color on this design.
So it's going to look really nice with the epoxy. I’m using three separate colors on
the wreath part of it. So I got a red and orange and a yellow color and the plans we
do lay out what colors were used and show you how you can get this exact same look.
So I let that all set up and then I pulled the blue tape off and used an indigo color
for the text. I used a piece of blue tape and a piece of paper to set my Z-zero position
up a little bit off of the material; that way we didn't carve into the actual wood.
So I’m going through here, and I did a first pass here, and then I realized that I just
wanted to take a tiny bit more off to reduce the amount of sanding that needed to be done
and I ended up making a huge mistake here. I accidentally
closed the file that I was working on. When I went to go load the file back in,
apparently I clicked on the V-carve file instead of the flattening toolpath file. So, I ended up
trying to do a V-carve with a flattening bit, which as you can see did not work out very well.
This one unfortunately cannot really be fixed so we decided to scrap this one.
I’m still going to use the material itself for the rest of the cuts so we're going to
go ahead and get those done and then we'll redo that here in just a bit.
So all of the joints for this box are going to be cut on the CNC.
So all the miters and everything are cut using that same RC-1141 90-degree V-insert bit.
So that's what it's doing here, cutting in the miters on the ends and then all of this will end
up making a tray that will surround the bottom. If you love this type of content be sure to
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I also decided to use this to make some French cleats. That's what it's cutting here. So that
way we can hang it on the wall when it is not in use and be part of a display instead of having
to take up cabinet space and sit in a cabinet. So that is all cut, so now we can get our profiles
all cut and you can see that we did cut all the way through the material using the 90-degree V-bit
and that is very important. That way we make sure that we get the most accurate miters that we can.
So using the 46202-k quarter-inch down-cut bit I’ll cut the dados in the sides and ends of the
tray that will accept the bottom panel later on. The down cut action of this bit makes a
really nice clean top surface of the material which is exactly what you want to see here.
We don't want any sort of chipping out even though we're going across the grain on the
Baltic birch plywood, which is definitely not easy to do. This bit did a great job so we can get that
all cleaned off so that we can see the next cuts. We use the auto tool changer to drop that bit off
and pick up the 46170-k quarter inch compression bit. I made a mistake in setting this up,
and the first pass was not below the up cut portion of the bit. So you can see that we do
have a little bit of chip-out there, but on this next cut I fixed that and you can see that we have
absolutely zero chip-out on that top surface. And because of the compression action of the
bit with an up-cut and down-cut portion of the bit, it'll give you a nice clean top and bottom
cut on the material, as long as that first pass is below the up cut portion of the bit.
So we use that to cut out all of the remaining parts on this tray
and then we can get that all vacuumed off and get those tabs all trimmed off using the fine
multi-master multi-tool. So even though I did use a vacuum table here, these parts are pretty small,
so a vacuum table may not hold them down. And definitely while filming everything I want to make
sure that everything goes as perfectly as it can, so we use tabs just to hold everything in place.
So you can see here we have a nice clean top and bottom surface
on that miter and then along the edges of all of these pieces with that compression bit.
So I remade the bottom portion of this tray using a different piece of wood, got everything
flattened off and then did the same process that I did last time to get everything flattened just
the way that I'd wanted it. So this one worked out perfectly. I think it's important for me to show
mistakes when they happen. It's important that you guys know that mistakes happen to absolutely
everybody and it's important to fix those when they can, and when they can't you just make a
new piece and everything ends up working out. So we got all of that sanded off down to the
bare plywood and I did use sanding sealer on this to prevent any sort of bleeding
in the epoxy and that worked out perfectly. So this one is now done and we got everything cut
out just the same way that we did the others, so the bottom of the tray is now ready to go.
So we can get all of the tabs flush trimmed. I’m using the 47116 three flute flush trim bit to trim
all of those tabs, and then I trimmed all of the inside tabs on the handle holds as well.
I got the bit all switched out on the saw stop router table, and I’m using the 49498
1/8 inch radius two flute round over bit to just add a nice profile to the hand holds,
to be a little bit easier to grip, easier to the touch and that worked out really nicely.
So now we can move on to writing on the bottom of the tray. I do this on basically
every project I make for the family as just a way to kind of look back on it.
So then I’m adding Odie’s Oil to the inside surfaces of all of the tray as well as the
bottom of the tray, that way it'll all be protected from glue as we're gluing things up.
The Odie’s Oil does a really nice job popping the grain and making everything look really nice.
After about 40 minutes I was able to buff the finish off and I really like
the way that this Odie’s Oil finishes on the epoxy and the wood surface.
So now we can get everything all assembled. I’m using some painters’ tape here as a hinge. So
I’m also using a piece of scrap wood here to help line everything up to make sure that is absolutely
perfectly in line, and that those dadoes are going to match up nicely and the corners as well.
So you can see here that tape acting like a hinge allowing me to fold that up. So we'll do the
exact same thing for all of the other pieces and getting everything all aligned up there,
and you can see how everything will fold together. So we're going to add some wood glue here this is
tight bond three wood glue and I’m just getting everything all put in there and I did the same for
all of the mitered corners. So I added the bottom tray and then we'll fold up the rest of the tray
around it, using blue tape on that last one to hold everything tight. Here's another look at
that from a different angle, so that you can see how that goes the blue tape does a really nice job
holding everything in place while the glue dries. So the glue is going to be the strength here,
and these just kind of hold the miters nice and tight. So you can see we got a nice tight
fit on all of those corners there. So after that is done we are going to add
some splines to help reinforce everything. This is just a spline jig that I made for my
table saw, rides along the fence, so we can get the box all put in there. And then I’m using the
Amana Tool RB-1020c blade. This is a flat top grind blade which is perfect for splines.
Getting everything aligned here making sure that I’m not going to cut through the entire miter. We
want to have a captured pocket here. I left the blue tape on there to avoid any sort of chip out.
You can see we're just going to run that through on each corner. We're going to do two splines per
corner. So we're going to go through and do this first set and then we'll speed through
that and then we'll get through the second set after we move the table saw over right here
So we're lining it up so that way we get everything perfectly centered
and then we'll do the same thing on the opposite side, getting two sets of splines per corner.
And these splines are going to help make sure that those miters stay around for a very long time.
We get that blue tape all pulled off and I got some stock planed down
to the exact size that I need for these miters. So I got it marked out and then I cut a little bit
bigger of a triangle than I needed over on the bandsaw to give me splines larger than I need,
so that way I can flush trim them later on, making sure that we have a nice
glue contact surface with everything. So using some Titebond III wood glue,
we'll get that all put in there and we have a nice little bit of squeeze-out
there which is exactly what you want to see. That means that we have enough glue in there
and we know that everything's going to be fully glued in.
So we did the same thing on the back one and some nice squeeze-out there again.
So then we can move over to the router table. Using the 57187 multi-trim
router. It has a bearing on the top and bottom, so it does a really nice job guiding here,
that way everything is nice and flush with that surface. It leaves just a little bit
left of that glue, that is basically stuck to the surface, that we'll do some sanding on, but
it does a really nice job flush trimming these. You can definitely do other ways of doing this
with like a hand saw or even just a hand plane but this is the way that I chose to do it.
We'll get that sanded down. You can see that we have a really nice fit on those splines. I
absolutely love the way that they look and really like the contrast that they give to those corners,
plus they provide a ton of strength that will make sure that this lasts for many years to come.
Using a gator zip sander, I just went through on all the corners and eased everything over
with some 220 grit sandpaper, and then finished the rest of the tray with the Odie’s Oil and
buffed it off after about 40 minutes. Really happy with the way that this tray came out.
The last thing that we need to do here is install the French cleat. The way that I designed this
is that the French cleat sits basically flush with the surface of the material.
So that way it can hang flush on the wall, and the mating piece we attach to the wall,
to be able to hang that tray on. So everything hangs really nicely and I definitely really
like the way that this looks. The tray came out absolutely beautifully and it'll work great for
us and provide decoration all year round instead of sitting in a cabinet for 90% of the year.
Be sure to check out those plans for this project available on our website,
and definitely let us know what you think about it down in the comments. Hopefully you guys
enjoyed it. Have a great day everybody. Thank you guys so much for watching.
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