A Tree-ditional Butler’s Serving Tray

In the now nicely organised stack of scrap wood that I have accumulated, I found some slightly darker coloured wood. As I’m still relatively new to this hobby, I really don’t know what kind of wood it is, but it seems somewhat harder than the pine and similar woods I have used previously. I don’t think it is hard enough to be oak but it has nice grain and was fun to work with. So I decided to make something useful for the kitchen. My wife Jenny does a lot of baking (see her awesome blog here) so something decorative for presenting cakes and other delicious delicacies was definitely going to be loved!

It was a very simple construction to assemble, although I had to contend with considerable warping/bending in some of the pieces of scrap wood. As I don’t have a planer or jointer, I had to try and flatten all the pieces with my hand planer and a selection of sanding methods. It was on the whole a success and I managed to get the base glued up in sections before securing on the ends with glue and screws to ensure a solid and stable connection.

The handles were cut by hand (with some difficulty due to the hardness of the wood!) and once they were secured to the tray, the sides were then screwed and glued onto the base and handles. The tray was then left to dry for a nice long period of time – one of the few benefits of doing my woodworking outside, is that I am frequently affected by the terrible British weather (which is bad), but means that things currently being glued and clamped often have to sit for several days before I can carry out the next step!

Once the weather finally decided to play ball again, I wiped the tray down to remove any saw dust and then applied two coats of linseed oil with a rag. I then left the tray to fully dry before bringing it into the kitchen. I know any items used for food need to use “food safe” finishes, but as nothing is being put DIRECTLY on the tray, it should be perfectly safe. And my wife Jenny loves it and has already used it for posing cakes for photos, so that clearly is the mark of success! 🔨