Applied some brown plasticky parcel tape to the formers, glued it all up making sure I had a good coating on all sides then made a nice sticky sandwich, stuck it in the formers and applied the cramps. The first one just didn't want to go together properly and I ended up applying some serious force to make sure the former was tight and squeezing the laminates together.
Then I realised that I'd not lined up the ends of the formers
A quick de-clamp, adjust the formers and they went together - sweet as anything. Little bit over-zealous with the excess width of the veneers.
Screwed the two parts of the former together as are going to run it through the planer and thicknesser to dimension the handles down to 20mm.
Planed one side down OK but while running the other side through the thicknesser....BANG. I'd carelessly put the bloody screw in at an angle. (That gapping in the laminate is outside the tray width and will be cut off. It's full of glue anyway !)
It doesn't take much to trash a virtually new pair of planer blades
Finally thicknessed them down
A little bit of glue on the surface but the critical thing is to sand it all off...even when you think you've done it, you probably haven't taken enough off and that will show through the finish.
I was going to mix up the stain for the flame mahogany side cheeks but realised that I'd forgotten the mix ratio and so while my request for the right mix ratio is out there pending a reply, I decided to sand off whatever finish was on there (I suspect it might be shellac) as I want a good resilient hard-wearing coat on the tray and intend to use Rustins' Plastic Coating ( a horrible name for a very good product...their marketing/product people should be shot coming up with a naff name like that). As the sanding progressed I found that there were some areas that simply didn't want to 'sand out' as it were.
You can see the darker areas here
I know what it is..I think that it is hide glue that has bled through pores in the veneer and so I'm stuck with it unfortunately. Let's just hope that the Coating will blend the difference and make it not so noticeable.
So what else to do while waiting for the mix ratio ?...
The veneer on the end cheeks. Found some flame mahogany veneer.
To be honest, I don't think that it's going to be that striking as you really need a large area for the flame mahogany to standout but since the cheeks down the long side are flame, it makes sense to stick with it. The big question was how to hold the veneer on while the glue was going off. Trying to clamp and apply even pressure I thought was probably asking a bit much and then I remembered I had some veneer tape. Certainly worth having a go and if it doesn't work ...well, it's an easy job to sand off the veneer and try a different approach.
If opportunity doesn't knock, build a door.