Try your hand at this simple, lovely tea tray with a carved piecrust edge. It’s a great first step toward creating period furniture reproductions, as well as a tasteful way to showcase your carving skills.
For the past five years, I have been teaching beginning woodworkers and carvers how to make this tray, with great student success. It’s a simple but rewarding project, requiring minimal use of power equipment and a small array of carving tools. It’s my pleasure to recreate my classroom instructions here on paper, and I think even the least experienced carvers will find this pretty little tray surprisingly attainable.
Of course, you don’t have to use your tray for tea; it would look great displayed alone, or set on a stand or table, inviting attention to whatever its contents might be. But in the 18th century, a tray of this sort would most definitely have been used to serve tea. Various sizes (usually 12" to 22" in diameter) and shapes of trays were made and used, but I find the piecrust to be one of the nicest.
In the May 2005 issue of The Magazine Antiques, Morrison H. Heckscher mentions two Newport-style round trays, referred to as “tea boards.” He indicates that numerous tea boards were made, but few survived, presumably because they were made into stands. This would explain why there are few antique tea trays in existence today.
You probably recognize the scalloped edges of this project from the tilt-top tea tables that many English and American craftsmen produced in the late 1700s. Although most piecrust tabletops were considerably larger than our tray – typically anywhere from 24" to 36" – the carved edges were very similar. Mahogany was the wood of choice for such tables, but they were also made from a variety of hardwoods such as cherry, walnut and maple.
Getting started
If you ever thought you’d like to create one of these tables, this tea tray or “tea board” is a great place to start. So let’s get to work by choosing our materials.
A single board produces the most pleasing finished tray, but with careful grain-matching, two or three pieces of wood glued together are an acceptable alternative. In fact, given the shortage of wide furniture-grade wood and the relatively high cost, it’s a good idea for the first tray you make to be glued up from pieces. Should you elect to use a single board, avoid highly figured or knotted wood the first time around.
To start, create a wood blank from a 1" x 14" x 14" piece of wood. Surface both sides of the blank to a final thickness of approximately 13/16". Actually, the blank thickness can range from 11/16" to 1". I find that a thinner blank yields an artistically more pleasing tray, where the 1" thickness gives a bulky look. A thickness of 13/16" seems about right; it’s not too bulky and not too fragile.
Find the center of your wood blank on the top and bottom by drawing diagonal lines between its corners and straight lines between the centers of its sides, forming eight “pie” sections (Fig. 1). Choose and mark the top and bottom of your tray. For the top, I try to choose the side of the tray which has the most pleasing grain pattern and/or the fewest visible flaws. However, this can be elusive – remember that you’ll remove wood from the center of the tray to a depth of 3/8", and beauty in the grain pattern can be fleeting as wood is removed.
Use a compass to draw two circles on the bottom side of the blank, 14" and 12-1/4" in diameter (Fig. 2). The first demarcates the outer edge of the tray, while the second defines the inner edge of the bottom side. Draw 14", 13-1/2" and 13" circles on the top side of the blank (Fig. 3). The 13" and 14" circles establish the locations of the inner and outer circumferences of the piecrust.
I usually don’t bandsaw the tray into its circular form until all the routing and relief carving on the interior of the tray have been completed. There are two very good reasons for delaying. First, leaving the blank square makes it easier to secure it to your workbench. Second, I’ve found that you don’t have to be as accurate doing the layout and relief carving for the inner piecrust edge. You’ll see more clearly what I mean when you get to these steps.
Fit your plunge router with a 1/2" straight bit. Use a circle-cutting jig set to an outer diameter of 13-1/2" and remove material to a depth of 1/8". Reset the jig to 13" and make a second cut, 3/8" deep this time. The combined cut must total exactly 1", with each cut being exactly 1/2" wide (Fig. 4).
Using the illustration on page 33, make a template for the tray edge by tracing the pattern onto translucent Mylar. (Mylar can be purchased at most larger office supply or sewing stores.) Cut out the pattern and draw the piecrust design onto the outside edge of the tray (Fig. 5). Don’t worry if the tracing is a little sloppy due to the unevenly routed edge; your carving tools will help you to form a beautiful, flowing piecrust shape.
Rout the remaining material from the inside of the tray, creating a flat bottom at a uniform thickness of 3/8". Be very careful not to remove any additional material from what will become the piecrust edge, which you created with the circle jig. There are at least two methods of routing out this material: You can add a long board to your router base; or, you can leave narrow wood bridges to support the router and remove them later with a bench chisel. If you leave narrow bridges, they should be across the grain rather than with it. I find that short cross-grain bridges are much easier to remove without serious tearout. It is best to remove these bridges with a #2 gouge.
Now we begin to carve the piecrust edge. I use Swiss carving tools made by Pfeil. Swiss tools are designated with a somewhat different numbering system than most other carving tools, which use the English, or Sheffield system. Here, I’ve listed the Swiss number for each tool I used; the first number denotes the profile type, while the second is the width of the cutting edge in millimeters. I’ll also provide, in parentheses, a description and the approximate Sheffield equivalent for each tool.
As illustrated in Figs. 6 & 7, the shape of the carving gouge forms a clean, symmetrical piecrust pattern which is repeatable with considerable accuracy. The lines drawn using the template only serve as a general guide; the carving tools with the appropriate sweeps do the rest. Remember that the piecrust edge pattern does not have to be repeated perfectly. Close examination of 18th-century tops reveals that they were not perfectly laid out or carved. Too exacting of a pattern layout tends to give the project a stiff look, artistically speaking, which takes away from the pleasing look of a hand-carved tea tray.
Begin forming the inner piecrust shape using a 7/20 (medium sweep, #7 straight gouge, 3/4") and a 2/16 (shallow sweep, #3 straight gouge, 5/8") to make a series of cuts into the grain, a process called “setting in.” Use the 7/20 to make the more rounded cuts as indicated by the illustration. Then use the 2/16 to make the shallower curves that connect each series of 7/20 cuts. When the front bevel of your gouge faces the tray edge, hold the tool perpendicular to the wood to create a vertical cut (Fig. 6). When the back bevel of your gouge faces the tray edge, hold the tool at an approximate 20-degree angle so the back bevel is vertical (Fig. 7).
Work your way around the interior, using a 1/2" straight chisel to remove the excess wood up to the piecrust profile, even with the tray’s routed bottom (Fig. 8). Take shallow cuts and feel out the grain direction as you go, removing wood with the grain, rather than against it. Depending on the hardness of the wood, you might have to repeat this motion several times.
Speaking of wood hardness, it might be necessary to use a carver’s mallet during the setting in and wood removal process. A word of caution: It’s not advisable to use the palm of your hand as a substitute for a mallet. This is a common mistake made by many beginning carvers. It’s very easy to cause serious injury to your hand without immediately realizing it.
Once the inner piecrust shape is formed, smooth the hollowed-out part of the tray top using a 2/35 (shallow sweep, #3 straight gouge, 1-1/4") and scrape and sand as necessary (Fig. 9).
Make any necessary adjustments to the penciled-on shape of the outer piecrust edge. Then use a bandsaw or scroll saw to cut the tray blank into its circular shape. I usually don’t attempt to cut out the concave portions of the scalloped edge with the bandsaw because it’s easy to lose control and remove more wood than desired. Instead, make small bandsaw cuts in the edge of the tray (Fig. 10) to facilitate removal of the material with a rasp.
Stabilize the blank in a bench vise and remove material from the bottom outside edge to develop the outer tray molding, which will make the tray easy to pick up from a countertop or table op. Refer to the illustration below for a cutaway view of the shaped outside edge; and remember to use the circle you drew earlier as a guide while you carve.
Use a 7/35 gouge (medium sweep, #7 straight gouge, 1-1/4") to form the concave shape (Fig. 11). The convex part (Fig. 12) can be formed using a 5/35 and the back bevel of the 1/2" straight chisel or a 25/13 (#4 back-bent gouge, 1/2").
Other useful shaping tools are a #49 pattern makers rasp, an 8" half-round bastard-cut file and an 8" half-round smooth-cut file. Sand to remove the carving facets.
Form the piecrust outer beaded edge using a 3/8" diameter, bastard-cut 8" round file (Fig. 13), the back bevel of a 1/2" straight chisel or a 25/10 (#4 back-bent gouge, 3/8") as shown in Fig. 14. Use rifflers and sandpaper to smooth the outer edge of the tray.
A 7/20 gouge forms the shape of the inner portion of the piecrust molding (Fig. 15). Refer to the illustration on page 33 for carving depths and the width of the fillet formed at the outer bead. About 3/32" for both will give a pleasing look.
The tray should be finish sanded with 150-grit sandpaper. If you plan to stain the tray, sand with finer grits, up to 320.
Since my tray will be used to hold foods as well as liquids, I use one of the many available Danish oils as a wood sealer. Then, I spray or brush on several coats of oil-based polyurethane, which will make the tray resistant to moisture.
As you can see in Figs. 16 & 17, you have created a tray that will surely become a family heirloom.
George Slack
A woodworker since the age of 12, George Slack specializes in building accurate 18th-century American furniture reproductions. He also teaches woodworking and woodcarving at Woodcraft Supply in Springfield, Va. George offers his next piecrust-edge tea tray class Dec. 10-11.
Tools used in this project
Carving chisels (Swiss system measurement) – 7/20, 2/16, 2/35, 7/35, 5/35, 25/13. Carving chisels (Sheffield system measurement) – medium sweep, #7 straight gouge, 3/4"; shallow sweep, #3 straight gouge, 5/8"; straight chisel, ½"; shallow sweep, #3 straight gouge, 1-1/4"; medium sweep, #7 straight gouge, 1-1/4"; #4 back-bent gouge, 1/2". Other tools used: #49 cabinetmakers rasp; 3/8" bastard cut 8" round file; soft-head carver’s mallet; medium circle cutting jig, planer, compass, plunge router, bandsaw (or scroll saw), bench vise.
Materials
Wood blank 13/16" x 14" x 14"
Sandpaper, variety of grits up to 320
Danish oil
Polyurethane finish
