Flight Serving Tray: Scrap Wood

I had some scrap wood that were off cuts from an old project. I decided to turn a couple of them into flight serving trays for glasses. This is a pretty straightforward project, even with the resin portion, so let’s dive in!

Materials:

• Flat piece of wood scrap
• Totalboat resin and hardener (if using resin)
• Alcohol ink (if using resin)
• Teak oil
• Chipboard/cardboard (if using resin)
• Tyvek tape/ packing tape (if using resin)

Tools:

• Sanders/ sandpaper
• Hole saw or forstner bit with diameter specified below
• Drill
• Hot glue gun with glue sticks
• Optional: chisel
• Tape measure

Pretty simple: we want this to sit flat on a table or counter, so we need to make sure the wood is flat and level with a table. To do this, I sanded the already rather flat pieces of wood down until they sat flush on a counter without rocking. If you have a lot of bark on one side, you may want to use a chisel or a draw knife to remove it or at least even it out. Sand it until its smooth.

If there are large checks or splits in the wood, we want to fill them up with resin. I decided to get a bit creative with some pieces; I colored the resin using alcohol ink and poured it in the cracks. I used the cardboard/chipboard coated with a layer of packing tape as an enclosure so the resin wouldn’t leak and used hot glue to adhere the cardboard enclosure to the wood to seal all exits for the resin. The resin takes 3 full days to cure.

I used a tape measure/ruler and eyeballed the diameter of the glass where I wanted the glass to rest on the tray. Remember, if you make the hole bigger than the diameter of the glass, then the tray cannot pick up the glass. If you have a stemmed glass, remember to make the hole bigger than the base, otherwise it will not fit on the tray. This does not have to be super precise (clearly).

I marked locations where I wanted these holes to be on the wood. Using the hole saw/forstner bit of the premeasured diameter, I drilled large holes into that piece of wood.

I sanded down the surface and rubbed a layer of teak oil for the finish. Et voila! Classy glass flight serving tray.