Seems like this must be the season for Butterflies! After seeing footprints lovely cutting board http://lumberjocks.com/projects/107676 yesterday, it reminded me to post this serving tray I made recently for my wife to celebrate a recent wedding anniversary.

This tray has an end grain field panel of Peruvian Walnut and Beech using a variation of the Butterfly Board design. I used my CAD program to scale the size and reconfigure the tray from the original square shape, using only half of the original pattern. The tapered rails and skirt were also milled from Peruvian Walnut. The inlays in the rails were made from pieces leftover from the field panel fabrication. The finished tray is about 15” x 21”.

The field panel was made in a unique way— a single block which had the geometric Butterfly Board pattern built into it was resawed on my bandsaw into three identical panels. These panels were subsequently bookmatched side by side by rotating the two outer panels in opposite directions about the center panel. This technique made fabrication much easier with smaller strips to handle and produced exact pattern matching at the bookmarked edges. Some of the edge strips were removed to attain the bookmatching and restore the continuity of the original pattern.

Narrow vertical splines were inset into the miter joints as an accent and provided a way to slightly round the tray corners to prevent handling damage. Horizontal splines were added to the miter joints for reinforcement.

The handles were attached by embedding studs, threaded into the handles, into blind holes with two part epoxy.

A water borne polyurethane, Target Coatings Superclear EM9000sc, was chosen for the high gloss finish of the tray. This finish is frequently used for high quality musical instruments such as guitars, drums, etc. I chose this water clear finish because I wanted to retain the chocolate brown of the Peruvian Walnut and the slightly pinkish tone of the Beech without adding any amber coloration. When I showed this tray during a presentation about its fabrication at our Northwest Woodworkers Association here in Seattle, WA, I was amused at how many of the folks couldn’t resist rubbing the high gloss finish!

I designed the commemorative plaque on the back of the tray and had it fabricated by a local sign shop to dedicate the project to my lovely wife. And best of all, she liked the tray…...... :-) A fun project with a satisfying result!

-- Paul, Auburn, WA