Initials Catch All Tray

This project was another of the gifts I made for my kids for Christmas 2023. This one was for my middle daughter, Molly. The idea was to use her initials to make a little wooden tray for her room where she could keep earrings, rings, and other such small items.

I used the same African Mahogany that I used for the sliding dovetail bookends. I used VCarve Pro to design the top of the tray and to create the tool paths needed to carve it out on the CNC. I chose a font that had large letters, made the letters bold, and stretched them to the size I needed. I wanted the letters themselves to be the pockets in the tray. The hearts were done using clip art that comes with VCarve Pro.

The carving was done in three steps or passes. The first pass used a 1/4″ spiral up-cut end mill to clear out most of the pockets. Next, a 1/4″ round-nose, spiral up-cut end mill removed the remaining waste from the pockets and left a nearly smooth finish. The final step was to use a fine carving bit to carve out the hearts.

Then it was on to the table saw and router table to cut out the tray and round over everything. The last step before finishing was to sand. The finish was done by spraying on several coats of super-blond shellac.