project 1 documentation: food serving board

part 1: the fabrication process:

       0. researching and sketching:

the original title of the project is cutting board so I thought that it would be fun to make a cutting board that looks like it can cut stuff. So I found this image on pinterest which is a cleaver-shaped food platter. (I wasn’t able to find the original image I was referencing to originally but here is a similar one also on pinterest)

1. drafting and cutting the shape out of the wood:

the band saw was used and its thinner blade gave me a bit more control over cutting corners and sharper turns.

luckily I didn’t have any inner holes to cut otherwise I would have to use the string saw (the one with the super-thin detachable blade with which you could cut inside a shape) which I do not like to use because it is very slow and pretty hard to control. 

I chose the shape and design for it is fun to hold and play with while having enough area to actually hold a substantial amount of things on it. Also with the two holes, it is easy to be hung on walls thus easy to store.

2. drilling and sanding: 

I drilled the two holes using the drill press and the hand driller. The bottom hole got snapped a bit because I was changing up the drill bits a bit too fast and one of the bigger bits got stuck in the hole.

Also I didn’t take the time to sand the inside of the bigger hole enough and I wasn’t able to sand the smaller hole entirely because I wasn’t sure how to. So next time I would avoid small holes like that if possible (or find some rods to glue the sandpaper on probably?).

 

3. routing and finishing:

using the router I was able to smooth out the angles in the handle and the back of the cleaver. The processor went not as messy as I thought because it was my first time using a router. I burned some of the areas because I stayed at the same spot for a little too long but it was easy to just sand it off later.

When applying the finishing I saw some irregularities which I didn’t see when I was sanding: there were some grooves that might have been created due to the sawdust on the table where my piece was touching and moving so I might need to sand once again to eliminate them. Otherwise I thought the finishing worked great, the surface looked smooth, just not as dark as I wanted it to be but it’s not a huge problem.