I’m taking a little break from the hall table project, to work on some Christmas presents. In past years I really haven’t made anything to give away. I guess I never found a project that I liked and that would represent what I was trying to do with my woodworking, and could be completed in a short period.
This last summer I took a handsawing class from Christopher Schwarz and in that class we made a Shaker Silverware Tray. The tray has handcut dovetails and was pretty easy to make. I though this would be the perfect project for Christmas gifts. I plan to make 4 trays if time permits. If you would like to make one, I using the plans found on Popular Woodworking’s site.
I’m working on this project with my woodworking pal Ananda. A few weekends ago we went out looking for some nice Cherry, but struck out on finding some Cherry. We wanted to find some s4s ½” Cherry, so we didn’t have to mill or resaw a lot of lumber. We wanted this project to be somewhat “quick”. All the ½” Cherry we found was all sapwood. I don’t mind seeing sapwood in some projects, but these boards were almost all sapwood. There was so much sapwood it really didn’t look like Cherry anymore. We did find some really nice Maple and chose to go that route instead.
We spent most of that first day laying out and cutting the boards to size. I also spent some time gluing up the tray bottoms. This last weekend started on one of the trays. I’ll post pictures of the process and progress in the coming weeks.
This should be fun project and now some friends and family will have something I’ve made.
