[CarveOne]

Last evening I slid a sanding block over the table surface to smooth off the light coat of fuzzies that the polyurethane always raises when rolled on. This morning I rolled on the third {final) coat. Later today I'll go get the sheet of material so I can cut the trays tomorrow if the weather isn't stormy. The storm off the east coast will be passing by this weekend. Today feels like a good day to just goof off ...

[Donny M. Carter]

Last evening I slid a sanding block over the table surface to smooth off the light coat of fuzzies that the polyurethane always raises when rolled on. This morning I rolled on the third {final) coat. Later today I'll go get the sheet of material so I can cut the trays tomorrow if the weather isn't stormy. The storm off the east coast will be passing by this weekend. Today feels like a good day to just goof off ...

Would you mind shooting some video of the trays being cut?

[CarveOne]

Yes, I'll try to remember to do that. I cut the top side first then flip the panel over and cut a bevel, then the profile cuts.

[CarveOne]

Well, I finally got everything set up and ready to cut the first half-sheet today. While it was cutting the top side I remembered that I was going to bump the feed rate to around 250 ipm from the 150 ipm I used two years ago. I also saw that there was a ramp-in feed rate of 20 ipm. Don't know why I set it up that way. (other than being a rank newbie back then) Oh well, I'll fix it before running the second half-sheet. Everything was looking good other than the plywood has worse inner plies than last time.

When I flipped the material over to cut the bottom side I was supposed to flip it left to right because the layout of the trays isn't symmetrical. Wouldn't you know it, I managed to screw that up while not paying close enough attention and the first half-sheet of the job is scrap. Maybe I'll have better luck tomorrow. I made some corrections that will speed up most of the tool paths up and will shorten the total cut time a lot.

[bill south]

Hey Carve;
Sorry you're having troubles and I've made the same mistake several times. The more it costs, the more it hurts, especially with expensive guitar bodies. One thing I try to do is to put an up arrow on both sides of the material prior to mounting. It does take out the confusion when flipping. BUT to be honest, I still sometime forget the arrow!
So much to remember!
Thanks for posting.
Bill

[CarveOne]

I wrote Top and Bottom on both sides of the sheet. I didn't run it yesterday, but set it up last evening. Estimated cut time for the front side is down to 42 minutes at 250 ipm. The back side is 24 minutes. I'll be running it by 6:30 am today.

[CarveOne]

The first 19 trays have been cut. It was touch and go between heavy rain storms yesterday. Now they need cleanup sanding. Later today I'll post some photos. A video will take longer to edit and upload.

This sheet of plywood has lots of voids, not from knots, but from the inner layers having lots of gaps where the layers were built up from pieces that were not placed together closely. It doesn't look very good but it isn't seen under a fajita pan during normal use, and it all turns black from charring due to 500 degree F pans being placed on the trays. Birch veneer plywood isn't any better and is more expensive. Baltic birch plywood is better, but is too expensive.

[CarveOne]

Some photos for now. The three videos I made are going to need trimming and joining to produce something worth looking at, however boring it might be.

Top side gets an elliptical pocket 0.370" deep first, then a 45 degree Vcarve bevel, then a Vcarve handle pocket with 45 degree bevel by doing a pocket with a 90 degree included angle V-bit.

Bottom side gets a 90 degree Vgroove, then a 1/'4" down spiral profile cut. Two tabs are included in each profile operation.

Lots of sanding afterwards with an upright belt sander and 80 grit sandpaper stuck to a block of scrap red oak. Some sanding is done with 80 grit belt sander paper and 320 wet/dry paper by hand.

The worst and best examples are shown in the individual tray photos. The plywood has lots of voids on the inner layers. The wood gets charred black after a couple of uses and they all look the same then ...

[BuckNaked31]

That's got to be the crappiest plywood I've ever seen! Where's it from?

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[CarveOne]

It's sold by the local Lowes Home Improvement store. I don't like it either but it has a nice looking front and back veneer and white wood of some sort. Birch veneer plywood isn't much better and costs $10.more per sheet The veneer on the back side isn't as good as on the front side and the inner layers are full of voids and buckled wood. The smaller trays can be cut from 1 x 12 poplar boards but I'm concerned that cupping will be a problem since the boards are typically one piece of flat sawn wood. It's more expensive for the same number of trays and requires a LOT more tool changes. I'll make a few that way and have the restaurant try them to see how they hold up.

They used my original MDF test cut sample and it held up fine, but I wouldn't make them from that material even if they asked me to. I suspect that any plywood with pine layers will smell like pine when hot and crud will build up on the bottom of the cast iron pans.

[CarveOne]

I double checked a piece of scrap birch veneer plywood in the shop and I was wrong about it having pine inner layers, it's birch, and the two faces have decent veneer layers. One looks better than the other, though both sides are plenty smooth. The next time I make trays I'll use the better material and see how it looks in the cuts. I don't think I have have a piece big enough to make a single tray. If I do, I'll cut one. If the bottom of the pocket happens to fall on a glue joint it still won't look so great.

[BuckNaked31]

Good ply costs a fortune these days. Too bad the poplar won't work for you, I pay 1.39/bf for 1c grade. That would add surfacing operations, but it sure would look nice. As far as the cupping goes, I live in Texas, every other place serves fajitas and a lot of the trays are made of solid wood, but by the time I see them I can't tell the species. Don't think I've ever seen one that was flat though

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[CarveOne]

I would prefer to use solid wood, but don't want to glue up narrow strips. A single tray will fit on a 1 x 12 x 13.5" piece of board. Not sure which glue will hold up to the heat. Plywood is just easier to deal with. Over behind some other yellow pine plywood I found a piece of birch veneer plywood that may produce 4 trays if I cut them individually, and I already have the files set up for doing that. I'll cut it up this evening.

I spent considerable time around Dallas in the mid 70's and never tried fajitas anywhere back then. One thing I need to have put on the menu at this restaurant is the baked jalapeño corn bread and butter that I got addicted to back then. .

[CarveOne]

The birch veneer plywood definitely looks better internally, at least when the cutter didn't stop on a glue joint. I made a miscalculation as to where the front side vcarve profile was supposed to be. I think that has been corrected now, and I'll cut another one tomorrow morning to prove it. I moved the profile vector outward by 0.150" and made it an outside profile cut 0.075" deep with the 90 degree V-bit. What this should do is prevent the front side veneer from chipping and also let the final profile cut stop just short of cutting into the spoil board. The veneer layer will chip off too easily when trimming it by hand or on the belt sander. That's what happened in the top side photo. There has been no sanding other than belt sanding around the perimeter to clean it up.

[BuckNaked31]

Mid 70's was probably too early for fajitas. I wasn't even here until 79, I'm originally from New Hampshire. I think fajitas came about the time I did as Tacos Al Carbon at a place called Ninfa's, I'm not positive... The other plywood looks a lot better, Btw. Thanks for the heads up about the Lowe's plywood....

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[CarveOne]

I just finished cutting the latest revision in the birch veneer plywood. No sanding has been done before these photos were taken. This one is better in many ways. The top side Vcarve profile did what I wanted it to do, and there will be less chipping around the perimeter. The final profile cut grazed the spoil board a tiny bit, so I'll back off on the depth of cut about 20 thousandths inch to correct that Since I added the text this time using a 60 degree Whiteside #1540 cutter I'll also use that for the front side Vcarve Profile. It cuts smoother than the 90 degree cutter I use for the bevels. 250 ipm feed rate for all tool paths is giving smoother cuts in this plywood.

Now I will update the settings in the files for the half sheet of 19 trays and it will be ready for production the next time they need new ones. I'll show the manager this untouched one later today. Maybe I'll turn this one into a stand up sign to place next to the cash register.

[Donny M. Carter]

Nice job And thanks for the pics! I'm sure the video will be great!

[CarveOne]

Thanks Donny,

I didn't get a chance to work on editing the video yet. Been away from home most of the day today. Hopefully I'll work on it tomorrow.. I'll finish sanding this one and give it to the restaurant. There is one male employee there who speaks no English that is very interested in how I made this. He knows about CNC router machines and may be interested in learning more about this work. The manager did the translation for me.

[CarveOne]

I made two more changes to help lessen the sanding effort.. If this works better I'll be quite happy with it.

It now automatically makes a bevel on the front side around the perimeter so I don't have to do it by hand. I changed the tool path from 0.075" depth outside the vector to a 0.15" cut deph on the vector.

I also changed the big pocket tool path to do a raster cut with a finish pass around the edge to see if it cuts a smoother flat bottom. It has been leaving some cutter marks in the center where the 3/4" router bit starts cutting after the first plunge. I have enough of the birch veneer plywood to do one more test cut.

[tauntdesigns]

Looks good.
I was curious if you could bevel the front deeper, looks like you did just that...... Does that change, change the location of the tabs and cause less ripping when cutting through?