This curvy serving tray made from pallet wood will be a great addition to your kitchen for day to day use. Make sure you don’t serve food directly on the tray or make the tray from regular wood. With the curved handles and sides, it looks elegant and is very handy to use.

Preparation

I start by preparing the pallet wood by planing and squaring the edges on my Triton planer and table saw. I make sure that the planing renders a smooth finish to the finished wood.

Cut the pallet wood to required sizes

I then cut the finished pallet wood into 5 equal parts, 3 to be used for the base of the serving tray and 2 to be used as sides of the serving tray. I also cut two more pieces equal to 3 x width of the single pallet board and 2 x thickness of the pallet board to form the handles.

Design the curves

I think create a bow using a thin strip of wood and joining the ends using a making tape forming a curved bow. Make sure that the bow retains its shape.

I use that bow to draw curved shapes on the 2 boards for the handles and 2 boards for the sides. You can customise the way you want to shape these boards to your needs.

Cut the shapes and bore the holes

I then cut the shapes using my band saw making sure that the cuts are as accurate as possible.

I think mark the spots to drill the holes on the boards for meant for the handles. These holes will eventually turn into handles for the serving tray.

I join the ends of the curve with a link and then find the center of that line. I mark two points equidistant on either side from the center of that line. These two points will be the center of the two holes that I will be boring.

I use my bench top drill press to bore two holes on the points that I had marked in the previous step. Make sure the holes are through and through.

The bored holes will look like below once the boring has finished.

Cut the handles

I then mark two parallel lines touching the circumference of the two holes and also being parallel to the base of the board. I will be using these lines to cut the board to form the handles.

I then use a jig saw to cut over those lines. The space for handles is formed once the board is cut along the lines as shown below.

Using a random orbital sander, I grind all the slides to remove any rough edges or splinters. I use a fine grit sand paper to sand the space inside the handles.

Glue up

I then join the 3 boards to form the base of the curvy serving tray using glue and clamps and leave them to dry.

I use a wood filler to fill any holes on the boards that were left due to the pallet wood nails. This will ensure the surface looks even and professional.

I then glue up the sides, handles and the dried up base to form the final shape as shown below. I leave the glued up curvy serving tray to dry overnight to ensure the sides are strongly glued to each other.

Apply stain

I finish off the curvy serving tray using a wood stain. I apply a think coat using a piece of sloth to all the sides of the curvy serving tray and leave it to dry overnight.