Valet Tray/Organizer

[andrewsejlv]

I posted this as a response to IngleGunLeather's valet tray topic (awesome post btw, check out the fantastic work on his tray inlay), but figured I would start a topic of its own as well. This was designed to hold my standard everyday items, and keeps them at the ready on my nightstand.

This was my first project working on a CNC machine. It was a fun project, and I'll definitely be working on the CNC machine again in the near future. I actually learned a valuable lesson about making sure your stock is properly adhered to the table before cutting as well, lol.

The MDF frame fresh off the CNC machine:


The frame with the leather liners installed, and finish applied:


And loaded up with all my standard items:


Really happy with how it came out. I've got a few more items I wanna make in this style (headphone stand, cases for some nice tools, etc.)

[ByNelson]

Beautiful stuff, can you tell a bit more about how it came together...? 

[andrewsejlv]

Just now, ByNelson said:

Beautiful stuff, can you tell a bit more about how it came together...? 

So there weren't too many steps in the making of this item:

First was the design of the item. I did the modeling of this item is Autodesk Fusion360. This was my first design in Fusion360 (I use SolidWorks at my day job, and it's my preferred CAD environment at this time), and I found a few things I really liked about it. For one, it let me design the MDF frame and the leather inlays in one model environment, and it has a good CAM post-processing system that allowed me to output the proper code directly to the ShopBot CNC router.

Next was cutting the frame. This was a pretty easy process with the ShopBot, especially since I could so easily model my stock material in Fusion360. I simply lined up the origin of my MDF stock with the ShopBot's origin point, and let it go to work. That's when I learned the lesson about keeping your stock properly adhered to machine bed. The router kicked the work piece across the bed, and proceeded to cut through the side of the stock. Thankfully it cut away from the internal pockets, and I was able to cut the outer profile of the tray with a table saw.

Then I cut the inlays of the tray on the laser cutter. Again, easy process with these tools, simply exporting the DXF of the inlays into CorelDraw and prepping for laser cutting. I will say that the liners were a little bigger than they should have been, so the Kerf didn't take off as much as I expected. Simple offset should solve this on future designs.

After sanding the MDF frame to knock down edges and even out the surface from the bit, I used Zinsser Amber Shellac for the finish. After a few coats of Shellac, and quick coat of some leftover semi-gloss gives the frame a nice finished surface.

Lastly I used some light duty 3M spray adhesive I had sitting around from another project to adhere the inlays to the tray. Because the inlays were a little bit, I chamfered the edges on the back side of the inlays, which allowed them to lay nicely against the edges (they roll up onto the walls a little bit, which is actually a nice effect I hadn't planned for).

[LeatherBeast]

I love how customized it is...a place for everything!

[ByNelson]

Thanks  I love to read about the way things are made!

[kiwican]

Fantastic