[BrakeDust]

Made my first custom chip tray at a friends woodshop this weekend. I want to thank Sparky and Ranman for their threads - inspiration at its best! I actually made 6 trays, but only one is complete. 4 made from ash, 1 from lacewood, and one from zebrawood. I used tigerwood for the sides of the ash and lacewood trays. I have ordered some african blackwood for the sides for the zebrawood tray.

Here is the finished lacewood tray with tigerwood sides. This tray will be my cash game bank. Built to hold 10 rows of 60 chips with spacers every 20 chips.

This turned out better than I hoped. Lacewood is some spectacular stuff. Sands down like glass - to 440 grit. The textured appearance is the grain and figure in the wood - it is very smooth all over. I used teak oil for the finish. The tigerwood sides turned out nicely too.

Here is the raw piece of lacewood. The time is really spent in preparing the wood. All sides square and planed out.


Here are the tigerwood sides before applying them.


The back of the tray may actually be prettier than the front. Again, lacewood is something special.


The obligatory chip pics:


The rest of the trays will hold 75 chips in each of the ten rows. The ash ones will be used for storage and the zebrawood tray will be my tourney bank tray. Here is a teaser of the zebra tray. I will post another thread when it is finished. The african blackwood sides should really set off the contrast in the natural grain of the wood.


A BIG thank you out to my best friend William. He takes his hobbies as seriously as we do. We share quite a few - flyfishing, flytying, wingshooting, and skiiing. He builds world class (no exageration) mandolins in his spare time. He was kind enough to give me free run and expert instruction in his state of the art woodshop. I have a ton a pictures and will post a thread later with the stages of the build (when I have more time).

[mac40k]

This is really nice work. I'd really appreciate some step-by-step instructions with photos. How about an article? {hint, hint}

[Guma]

That is one gorgeous piece of work you have there!

[tomb1]

Wow, fabulous racks BD. Terrific work and fast, too!

[Ranman]

Those are beautiful. I love exotic woods. How did they cut with that big bit? How many passes did you take to cut the grooves? Do you think they might be prone to tear-out? And lastly, where do you get your wood?

Thanks

Ranman

[BrakeDust]

Thanks Ranman. I saw your thread a couple of weeks ago and it got my imagination running. If not for Sparky and you, I would not have these beautiful trays.

The bit worked really well. We ran it at 15000 rpms on a 3.5hp Milwakee router. We used a Shopbot to do the routing. That's why the spacing is so exact. That thing is accurate to 0.001" .

There was minor (less than 1/8") tearout as the bit left the end of the wood if you were routing across the grain on the lacewood. The ash - not as much. I made the rows too long, and then cut to size with the table saw - problem solved. No tearout when routing with the grain - as in the zebrawood.

We used 8 passes to get to 0.55" deep.

I went to a place called Hardwood Center in Scottsboro, AL www.hardwoodcenter.com . About 30 minutes from my house and right on the way to my friend's house in Chattanooga, TN. I ordered the blackwood from www.exoticwoods.com .

[develvjd-]

BrakeDust, when is your birthday?

I need to mark my calendar to make sure I don't miss out on a lottery!

On a more serious note, excellent craftsmanship! Will you install these in a table?

[BrakeDust]

Thanks. Not planning on installing them in a table. I keep the bank on another table behind where I sit. That way the poker table is wide open without obstruction. I personally only like the tray in the table when you have a full time dealer that is not playing.

[Wedge Rock]

Very nice work, Brakedust, very nice work indeed.

[Button Potato]

Are you planning on offering these for sale?