GW Staar
Member
- Joined
- Feb 26, 2009
- Messages
- 3,709
I had some oak cove moulding left over from a job yesterday so I used it to fancy up an egg crate case tray. Stained wood and white look nice together IMO.
4' of 3/8" and 4' of 3/4" is enough for one tray and extra in case you make a cutting mistake....or if you're perfect and never experience interruptions or senior moments, 6 sides.
All materials came from Home Depot including the 2'x4' piece of broken egg crate (fluorescent lighting dept.) that I got for pennies. I used liquid plastic model cement to glue stacked pieces of the 3/8" thick egg crate together to make it a 1" high. Cutting egg crate is simple. Just use flush-cutting diagonal nippers.....takes minutes. Then sand the edges smooth. (if you make this project, be sure to rotate the two layers where they line up...that occurs only 1 direction)
The double-thick egg crate just lays over a 1/4" Melamine base. (that's the lazy already finished way). You could use 1/4" oak plywood stained and sealed also....but melamine is easy to clean.
The 3/4" cove was placed upside down for a finger recess.
The 3/8" cove was placed on top of the 3/4" cove to finish it higher than the egg crate.
Once I had the design figured out I glued the two 4' coves together as shown.
The top edge of the lower cove protruded too much for my liking, so I planed it 1/8", using a scriber and block plane, then rounded the edges as shown below. Shoulda planed it another 1/8".
This is the end view of the two cove pieces glued together.
Then I used a miter saw to cut four pieces with miters and glued & clamped it....let it dry for an hour before sanding. Notice I had to remove the rubber feet on the little clamps so they'd fit inside the egg crate and clamp it to hold the moulding tight. (two sides are a little longer than the other two sides, same with the bases, due to manuf. imperfection of the egg crate.)
This is a corner to better illustrate the combo moulding....before seam filling with wood dough and sanding of course.
Same corner sanded. Stainable Oak wood dough was used to fill any imperfections before sanding.
Stained it to match my bench, and used stock finish to seal it. Gloss was removed after it dried with steel wool.
Finished tray with cartridges added for demo. Notice the size is comparable with a typical 50 round tray....only there's 100 holes!
Wood glue is used to glue the melamine edge to the bottom of the moulding edge.....used a little 5 minute epoxy on the plastic egg crate edge to glue it to the moulding.
I have used 100 hole egg crate trays for a couple of years without the fancy edges, due to the need for more tray capacity when you use a progressive.
I kind of like this fancy pants tray, so I think I'll go buy another 12' of each cove and finish the egg crate and melamine bases I already made yesterday....showing in the background of some of the pictures.....Then on to the next project. Can't wait.
4' of 3/8" and 4' of 3/4" is enough for one tray and extra in case you make a cutting mistake....or if you're perfect and never experience interruptions or senior moments, 6 sides.
All materials came from Home Depot including the 2'x4' piece of broken egg crate (fluorescent lighting dept.) that I got for pennies. I used liquid plastic model cement to glue stacked pieces of the 3/8" thick egg crate together to make it a 1" high. Cutting egg crate is simple. Just use flush-cutting diagonal nippers.....takes minutes. Then sand the edges smooth. (if you make this project, be sure to rotate the two layers where they line up...that occurs only 1 direction)
The double-thick egg crate just lays over a 1/4" Melamine base. (that's the lazy already finished way). You could use 1/4" oak plywood stained and sealed also....but melamine is easy to clean.
The 3/4" cove was placed upside down for a finger recess.
The 3/8" cove was placed on top of the 3/4" cove to finish it higher than the egg crate.
Once I had the design figured out I glued the two 4' coves together as shown.
The top edge of the lower cove protruded too much for my liking, so I planed it 1/8", using a scriber and block plane, then rounded the edges as shown below. Shoulda planed it another 1/8".
This is the end view of the two cove pieces glued together.
Then I used a miter saw to cut four pieces with miters and glued & clamped it....let it dry for an hour before sanding. Notice I had to remove the rubber feet on the little clamps so they'd fit inside the egg crate and clamp it to hold the moulding tight. (two sides are a little longer than the other two sides, same with the bases, due to manuf. imperfection of the egg crate.)
This is a corner to better illustrate the combo moulding....before seam filling with wood dough and sanding of course.
Same corner sanded. Stainable Oak wood dough was used to fill any imperfections before sanding.
Stained it to match my bench, and used stock finish to seal it. Gloss was removed after it dried with steel wool.
Finished tray with cartridges added for demo. Notice the size is comparable with a typical 50 round tray....only there's 100 holes!
Wood glue is used to glue the melamine edge to the bottom of the moulding edge.....used a little 5 minute epoxy on the plastic egg crate edge to glue it to the moulding.
I have used 100 hole egg crate trays for a couple of years without the fancy edges, due to the need for more tray capacity when you use a progressive.
I kind of like this fancy pants tray, so I think I'll go buy another 12' of each cove and finish the egg crate and melamine bases I already made yesterday....showing in the background of some of the pictures.....Then on to the next project. Can't wait.
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