Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
Stinky beer spills and nasty carpet stains—nobody wants to clean those up, right?
Hey, DIY Nation! It's Jeff with HomeRepairTutor. And in this video I'm going to share with
you how to build a really simple yet cool-looking serving tray like this one here. And along
the way, you're going to pick up a ton of really fantastic carpentry tips. And, oh,
one really, really important thing I wanted to mention, I found out a new way to stain
wood without having all the fumes 'cause I had to stain this in my garage and it's literally
like -28° outside, so I couldn't have fumes coming into the house.
So stay tuned. I think you're going to like what this video's going to share with you.
And let's get to it. The first thing that you're going to want
to do is make the base for your serving tray. Now draw a straight line on the piece of wood
using your speed square, then line up the edge of the blade with that pencil mark. Oh,
and before I forget, use a 60 tooth circular saw blade to get a nice, smooth cut. It's
going to look awesome in the end if you use this kind of blade.
Use the exact same method to make the rails of the serving tray. In this case I made two
12" rails and two 25½" long rails that we're going to service the sides of the tray.
Oh, by the way, that's me, doing this project on a nice, snowy day in Pittsburgh. Woohoo!
The next step is to sand down all the surfaces. I started with 120 grit and moved up to 220.
I also rounded off all the edges just a bit using the sander.
Next, take a tack cloth and wipe down all the surfaces so that there's no dust on them.
And you'll get a great looking stain job. For this project, I wanted to try out the
Minwax Wood Finishing Cloth. It's something new to me. You just wipe it on. You get enough
cloth to, I believe, cover about 50 square feet. And that's more than enough surface
area to be covered with the cloths for this project. So just wipe on the stain with the
cloth in the direction of the wood grain. It's time to attach the short rails to the
base, oh yeah! So you're going to want to grab your clamps at this point, your Titebond
II wood glue, some 6d 2" finish nail, your drill. And what you're going to do is apply
the wood glue to the edge of the base. And then, sandwich that together using a short
rail. So I glued the 12" short rails first in this case.
Now you're going to use your clamps and clamp them together. And any wood glue that squeezes
out, you're going to want to clean up because it just doesn't look good.
I drilled three holes into the 12" rail. And then, I used 2" 6d penny nails. You can use
a nail set to pound them in the rest of the way. And then I added wood glue to the bottom
of the base. And again you can just slide that 25" or the long rail up to the wood glue
and then put your clamps in place. Oh and remember, you want to wipe off the excess
glue. Now with the long rails, I drilled additional
holes. And again added some penny nails and pounded them into place using the nail set.
You want the penny nails to be sunk just slightly below the wood.
You can use some stainable wood filler, in this case I use Minwax, and put that in the
holes where the penny nails are. And then just wipe off the excess. You can also add
an additional coating of wipe on poly to protect the finish of the wood.
All right, as a summary, here's what you should've learned. Speed squares = straight wood cuts.
You can use a speed square and a circular saw to make straight awesome cuts into pretty
much any piece of wood. Secondly, a 60 tooth blade = a clean wood cut. So anything less
than a 60 tooth blade may not yield a super clean look in your wood. Sand with 120 then
220 grit to get a really, really fine appearance. And then tack cloths = better stain finishes
because they'll clean up any of the wood chips or debris or dust or fine wood particles which
will mess up your stain. Which brings me to this point, the Minwax finishing cloths don't
have any fumes. They're pretty much fumeless. And I'll tell you what, I was super impressed
by them. And what makes them even cool is if you don't use up all the stain on the cloth,
you can put it back in the resealable package and use it for another day. Then penny nails
are awesome for finish carpentry. So 2" 6d penny nails are what I use for this project.
Then you can pound them into place using a nail set. And nail sets are super cheap, but
you should have one if you're going to do any carpentry. And wood glue + penny nails
+ clamps are going to make a strong, strong carpentry project. So that's what I did in
this case. I added the wood glue to the base, pounded in the penny nails to attach everything,
and then clamped it and left it overnight. Then stainable wood fillers for nails, I use
the Minwax stainable wood filler. And then once that dried, I sanded it down slightly
and used the Minwax finishing cloth to stain the wood filler. And it turned out fantastic.
All right, that's it. That's how you build a super simple and modern serving tray. So
I hope that you liked this video. And I really think that the tips in it will serve you well
for other carpentry projects that you have coming down the road.
So if you have a comment, please let me know. Leave it in the comments section. And remember,
if you haven't already done so, you can subscribe to my YouTube channel or you can go to HomeRepairTutor.com
and sign up for the email newsletter. It comes out every single Friday and it's meant to
save you money, time, and make you less overwhelmed with your own DIY projects.
So until the next video, hope you have a great day. I really appreciate you stopping by,
and I'll talk to you soon. Take care! [Outtakes]
I'm no beer connoisseur but here's what I've got. And let me know which one you like. All
right, do you like IPA? Here's a decent one by Centennial.
Oh, okay, bonus points for anybody who knows the name of this guy on the beer. Please let
me know. This is a nice weak beer. But let me know if you know this guy right here. I'll
be super impressed if you do. Of course we've got I.C. Light in Pittsburgh.
So you got the I.C. Light Pittsburgh Pirate. And finally, you got Fire Rock Pale Ale. I
like this beer a lot. Pretty fantastic. So anyhow, let me know what kind of beer you
like. If you don't like wood working, I'm sure you probably like beer.
Take care.