Over the next couple of days, I am going to take you through the steps to see how a poker tray comes together. There is nothing fancy about this, nor is this procedure cast in stone. I'm sure there are different ways to accomplish this, but without a 4-axis milling mac
hine and CNC, this is the way I envision I'll be cranking 'em out for a while...
Here I have selected some 5/4 Quarter-Sawn White Oak to use as the primary wood for the tray. I'll sandwich a slice of Claro Walnut between two pieces of the White Oak, and cap it off with some more Walnut. Here I have a 6" wide board freshly milled.
I am setting up to rip the 6" White Oak down to 3 pieces, 1.5" wide. I like to use the bandsaw for this, as the blade is rather thin and it minimizes the waste from the ripping process.
The view on the right shows you that I was able to get three pieces with very little waste. The boards came out rough from the bandsaw, so I'll run one side through the jointer to get a smooth surface, then run it through the surface planer to make sure all of the pieces are smooth and of a uniform thickness.
The boards have been run through the planer, and I have taken off less than 1/32" on the pass. Using the slow setting on the Dewalt 735, the boards come out silky smooth, and there is no need to sand them down at this point.
Since I am planning on making 8 trays for this project, I 'll need a total of 16 pieces, cut to 10" each.