Highchair Tray

I walked into my husband's shop and found this discarded maple highchair tray on the work bench, destination: trash. In the past he had made a few highchairs, and this was a remnant of that.

I grabbed it up, knowing I could use it for the blog. I decided to make a tray with tooled leather or pyrography and Steer Drawer Pulls.

After the tray was sanded, I drilled holes for the Steer Pulls and installed them, then removed them to do all the finishing.

The screws were counter sunk on the bottom with a 3/8 Forstner bit. This was done before the wood finish.

Close up view of the Steer Pull sprayed with metallic silver.

I carved this checkbook design which was taken from a book written by a friend of mine. The plan was to repeat this design across the tray, but that seemed boring to me. After much thought, I decided on a star in rope in the center. You can't get more western than that!

I made a paper template for the inside of the tray, transferred it to veg tanned leather and cut it out. I drew the carving design on the paper template and transferred it to the leather.

I forgot to take a photo of the tooling before it had a finish, but here it is with a coat of brown leather finish.

I put a resist coat on the leather, then medium brown antique paste which really brings out the cut marks. I finished with a clear topcoat.

Here is the finished tray! Wow! The dimensions are: 21" x 10" x 1".

The wood was stained with Minwax water based English Oak and finished with 2 coats of Minwax water based Polycrylic Clear Gloss. Water based is so easy!

I glued the leather piece into the tray and installed the pulls.

What will you find to transform? Have fun!