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Wooden Valet Trays, Part 2: Vertical

Can you stand it

By Rain Noe - December 15, 2015

in Organization | Entrepreneurship

In the last entry we looked at your standard valet trays, which sit horizontal. But lately on Etsy there's been a rash of designs going vertical, either to provide better visibility or take up less tabletop real estate. They presumably evolved from simple phone holders like this one or that one…

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…into models like this that could hold the phone, plus keys and a watch:

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Some of them get a bit busier, like this one:

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This design offers similar capacity but gets a little cutesy with the charging cord:

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While the one above at least uses nice-looking lumber-core plywood, this model below has gone with the cheaper stuff, to ill effect; for the hero shot, I'd not have gone with a visible void in the plywood. But this piece also adds the capability to charge an Apple Watch.

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This model is for people who really love California. It also provides space for storage behind the vertical plane, which seems a bit ergonomically awkward:

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In general, I think this odd category of object tends to look better in natural wood, like this one below:

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You'll notice none of the designs above leave any place for coins. These solid wood models provide a small depression for them, as well as pegs for wedding rings:

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While I'm not a fan of the aesthetics of any of these, the sheer proliferation of them on Etsy seems to indicate there's demand. (Click here, you'll see there's dozens of sellers producing a wide variety of designs.) It's not often that we get to see a new type of object populate our "product landscape." The question is whether the somewhat clunky designs will remain firmly rooted in the craft sector, or if the more snobbish design world will jump on board.

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Scott Brown

8 years ago

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I should add: the lumber core pictured might be fir, which does look nicer, but still has voids.
I do a lot of work with baltic birch because it's a higher quality material and I like the look of the exposed ply-edges - the fabrication in the piece pictured above just isn't particularly well done.

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Scott Brown

8 years ago

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Regarding your comments about the plywood - "nicer looking lumber core" vs. "cheaper stuff.. to ill-effect" - that's backwards!

The lumber core is lauan, or perhaps another fluffy grade of lightweight, low-grade core material. I can get 3/4" cabinet grade 5-ply oak plywood for about 40 bucks per 4x8. it's full of voids, and is meant to be edgebanded or used with faceframes.

The cheaper stuff you refer to is 13 ply 3/4" baltic birch at 70-80 dollars per 4x8, or closer to a hundred for apple-ply. It's as void-free as any plywood you can get, and it's way more durable and heavy-duty than the luaun core junk... I think what you're calling a void in the photo is a dark bit of knot in one of the veneer cores.

What bugs me about the "cheaper stuff" birch plywood model are the burn marks in some of the small inside radii. This can happen when router tool path direction changes abruptly, and it can be difficult to sand out. Sharp tooling and proper speed & feed are crucial.

Also, who in the heck wears a watch?

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- Rain Noe
  
  Scott Brown
  
  8 years ago
  
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  Scott, it's not backwards, at least as far as what I can get in NYC:
  There are two lumberyards local to me, and one sells Chinese-made 11-layer (13 counting the face veneers) crap for $40 for a 4x8. It's loaded with voids, laminated with that red glue, prone to warpage, always requires a finishing pass because every other layer pushes out, and measures 0.69" to 0.7" thick.
  The other place sells Canadian-made 5-layer (7 counting the face veneers) that's oak on one side, Baltic birch on the other, fir in the middle for $52 for a 4x8. It takes one pass to get a clean edge (I can edgeband after the first pass), contains less voids, doesn't delaminate as easily, stays relatively flat and measures 0.725" to 0.745" thick.
  I consider the latter stuff well worth the extra $12, and look forward to making small jigs where I can burn through the crappy 11-layer scraps I've got laying around.
  Your comment makes me realize, we should totally start up a database where we share our locales, prices, quality details, and most importantly the manufacturers of the plywood available to us. Next time I get my hands on one of the fresh Canadian sheets, I'll take a photo of the edge that's got the manufacturer's info on it--I can't remember the company name, just that it mentioned Canada.
  
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  - Scott Brown
    
    Rain Noe
    
    8 years ago
    
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    ... and there you are. I appreciate this - I rarely get to talk shop about plywood. My construction industry friends couldn't care less about stuff like this. "CDX FTW"
    
    I'd happily help to gather data on materials available here in Minneapolis..
    
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- Rain Noe
  
  Scott Brown
  
  8 years ago
  
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  P.S. I don't know who still wears a watch!
  
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