A few years back, my wife and I were taking a trip to see her family in Japan. This would be the second time I meet her grandparents (who speak not a word of English) and this time I wanted to bring a small gift for the house, given that the last time I was there I barely said a word (as I speak not a word of Japanese).
Now, as a rookie hobbyist visiting Japan – a country where some of the finest woodworking in the world is produced – to gift something made from wood with only (Western) hand tools – this was a little intimidating.
Planning this project was interesting, and posed its own challenges because I wanted something that would look attractive, be useful and practical, but also fit in and travel well in a suitcase meaning relatively flat and space efficient.
As always, I wanted to push my skills and try to improve my craft too, not just rely on the same old things I’ve done before.
After some deliberation, and consultation with my wife, I settled on a classic serving tray – some might call it shaker style, it wasn’t purposely a shaker tray – to serve as a tea tray. We noticed they used a small one to serve tea during our last visit, and thought an upgrade would be a thoughtful gift. I bought a plank of white oak and started planning.
This didn’t take a lot of design work, only planning dimensions. I felt it was self-explanatory that the frame around the sides would be dovetailed, the ends would have curved and cutout handles, and the bottom panel would be set into a groove around the frame. This wasn’t the original plan but the bottom panel ended up bookmatched too.
I started with crosscutting the material to length, ripping it to width and planing it flat and square. It was my first time using white oak, it is hand-tool friendly but a little tougher than I had worked with before. I had to really stay on top of sharpening my planes, they dulled quickly and evidently.
In these situations it’s easy to get frustrated when you feel like you just sharpened, are just getting into a rhythm, you try to push a few more shavings when really you know you have to go sharpen it up again. Instead of just stepping away you push a little harder, try to get a bit more work done, but if you had just gone and sharpened it would be a lot less time and effort to get where you need to go.
I started with dovetailing the frame, which was a simple process with just one dovetail on each corner. The workmate and Veritas carcass saw got this job done. Once I had the dovetails cut I moved on to ploughing the groove for the bottom panel.
This process was not a pleasant one.
I had used my Stanley 45 only in a couple of test runs on some pine and it was working ok. Not amazing, a little finicky, but I thought it was working well enough to get the job done. The main issue was the locking mechanism that holds the blade in place. When loosening it, it would snap and jump, so the blade would unseat and pop out instead of a smooth loosening with the blade staying in place. This meant that loosening it slightly to adjust the depth of cut just slightly was… problematic. The blade would either be too shallow to cut or so deep it ripped lumps out of the wood. This was ok in soft pine with little resistance – the shavings were thick but still peeled away. But after fiddling around to try get the blade to the right depth of cut, and proceeding to go ahead and try power through these grooves, was not a fun time. Especially against the grain in spots – there were some chunks lifted either side of the groove.
Workholding was another struggle. The sides were so thin and narrow, it was hard to get a hold of them on the bench or workmate. I tried to double stick tape it to the workmate and this may have worked with a light shaving, but with a heavy cut the tape didn’t stand a chance and lifted right up.
I think I jerry-rigged some stops to hold it in place and the carnage began. Somehow, with no lack of swearing and frustration, I got the grooves ploughed.
Once the joinery was set on the four sides, I moved on to the panel.
This was a huge mistake of poor planning and forethought. I’m not sure why, but I planned to glue the panel and then either resaw or plane the panel down to thickness. After I glued up this ¾” white oak – and having dealt with surfacing and ploughing it – I thought better of it. It hurt a little bit to backtrack but it made a lot more sense to rethink the plan. I ripped the panel in half again and decided to resaw one piece to make a bookmatched panel for the bottom.
It was definitely the right call.
Now, resawing is an unpalatable activity at the best of times. This was white oak on a rickety bench in the dead heat and humidity of summer. The workmate was a friend on this one, and over a couple of evenings I laboured through the sweat and dust and managed to resaw this 5”x12”, ¾” white oak. With a 7TPI, 26” Disston (originally crosscut but I had started filing rip so maybe half and half).
Under less than ideal circumstances, with a little elbow grease, some decent work can be done.
On with the process of planing these pieces to glue up into a panel. I dimensioned them only as much as necessary (taking out the saw marks) and glued the panel. It was slightly oversized in all directions which was fine by me so I could fine tune the fit to the actual size of the frame and groove – keeping the glue line dead centred. It was a little thick for the groove so I bevelled the bottom edges to fit. Once it fit in the groove, I dry fit it and planed the long and short edges to fit with a bit of wiggle room for expansion.
The other big piece of the puzzle was cutting out and shaping the handles. I sketched a template, drew it out on one end to make sure I was happy with the shape, and drew it on the other one. I drilled the holes first while it was easier to get a grip on the piece, then used a keyhole saw to join the holes. To clean up the handles I used files and sandpaper until it looked smooth and felt comfortable. For the outside curves I used a coping saw to rough out the shape, then used files and sandpaper again to refine it.
At this point all that was left to do were some finishing touches – sanding the inside surfaces before glue up and breaking the corners with a light chamfer.
Glue up went well with only four corners to join although once it was assembled, the work was far from over.
I planed all the joints flush to see how they came out. I did have to plug the hole from the termination of the groove in the tails and had to fill other minor gaps. For the square groove holes I used some cutoffs, tried to match the end grain as best I could, and glued them in place. Some other minor gaps were filled with wood slivers, one or two with some glue and sawdust. Next I chamfered all the outside corners just slightly, then sanded the exterior.
Finally it was ready for finish: a coat of boiled linseed oil, then paste wax.
Overall I’m happy with the project. I like the proportions, the joinery came out well, I like the grain and colour, and the bookmatch. I’ve visited the house that this will live in and I think the lighter, softer colour and grain will fit in nicely.
Looking back at this project, I’m surprised I can still be satisfied with the end result considering the struggle I went through to get there. The space I was working in was diabolical in terms of fine woodworking. The bench was rickety, the floor was slanted, the workmate was shaky (did I mention it was a balcony? As in outdoors?). I had extremely limited tools – only hand tools – and a rudimentary knowledge of them at best. But I completed the project to a level that I’m happy to share as a gift, an important gift to people who hold a special place in the family.
So the tray got wrapped in brown paper, packed in the suitcase, made the trip to Japan and was hand delivered to Kawagoe. My wife’s grandparents were surprised, and extremely appreciative of the thoughtful gift. From their perspective it was too nice to use as a lowly tea tray, and the challenge was finding a use worthy of the gift – I stressed it was not a sacred object, as with everything I build it’s made to be put to good use. If only they knew the struggle.
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