Stuart Ablett
Member
- Messages
- 15,917
- Location
- Tokyo Japan
For the past five years or so we host a Christmas dinner party for friends at our house the Sunday before December 25th as the 25th is just a regular work day here in Tokyo.
For the last couple of years we have had 36 people attend the party. That’s a lot for our small house in Tokyo but we manage.
One of the things we have trouble with is chairs, as we only have four chairs in the house with a couple of small stools.
The other thing we lack are plates, and utensils.
We still borrow chairs, but borrowing plates, knives and forks is problematic. It always ends up being a hassle at the end of the party as inevitably things getting mixed up.
Last year my wife bought thirty catering plates, and thirty sets of utensils. The plates are white, large and perfect for a Christmas dinner. They were inexpensive, maybe five dollars each, they are B grade plates and I found out the diameter and thickness varied a lot.
The plates came in cardboard boxes which were very in expensive boxes and even after one year of use we’re just not holding up. As you can imagine 30 plates, are rather heavy, and putting them in cardboard boxes, that are not very sturdy, is just not a long-term solution.
I decided to make up some boxes to hold the plates.
First I made a prototype to just see how closely the plates could be stacked together in a box so they would be protected and we could easily move the boxes around. The box and ten plates is actually fairly heavy, so I made three boxes.
I fooled around with the spacing and I did get it right eventually. The boxes are made out of some inexpensive pine boards with an MDF top and a plywood bottom. While I did use dados and grooves on the corners of the boxes, they’re fairly simple boxes, perfect for what I was doing.
To make the grooves to hold the plates I made a quick little jig on my tablesaw sled, This jig worked out really well and I was quite pleased with it. Yes it took a couple of attempts to get it exactly right but it did work out very well.
It’s just a tooth, if I can use that word, that is cut into a thin board that is attached to the face of the sled and then after I make the first cut the freshly cut groove in the board is slid over top of the tooth which that gives me my spacing.
It works very well, it was very simple and I was quite pleased with the outcome.
Once the boxes were all assembled and glued up and sanded I put a light coat of wiping varnish on them.
It was a bit complicated to make the lid slide on in such a way that would go over the grooves which the plates are in. The lid slides front to back in the grooves that are on the left and right sides of the box.
I realized after making the boxes that I could’ve made it much easier on myself by having the lid slide on right to left, Live and learn I guess.
To make the groove for where the lid would slide on and off I also made an integral handle because these boxes like, I said, are fairly heavy and handles on either side just make it easy to pick up.
The three boxes were easily stack one on top of each other in a cupboard somewhere.
My lovely wife is pleased with the work and the plates will be now safely stored for many Christmases to come in fact I wouldn’t doubt if these plates and boxes will be in our family for a very long time I certainly hope so.
thanks for looking.
BTW, using Tapatalk to post these is slow and cumbersome, one pic at a time, unless you pay kinda sucks.
Is there another app that works better?
For the last couple of years we have had 36 people attend the party. That’s a lot for our small house in Tokyo but we manage.
One of the things we have trouble with is chairs, as we only have four chairs in the house with a couple of small stools.
The other thing we lack are plates, and utensils.
We still borrow chairs, but borrowing plates, knives and forks is problematic. It always ends up being a hassle at the end of the party as inevitably things getting mixed up.
Last year my wife bought thirty catering plates, and thirty sets of utensils. The plates are white, large and perfect for a Christmas dinner. They were inexpensive, maybe five dollars each, they are B grade plates and I found out the diameter and thickness varied a lot.
The plates came in cardboard boxes which were very in expensive boxes and even after one year of use we’re just not holding up. As you can imagine 30 plates, are rather heavy, and putting them in cardboard boxes, that are not very sturdy, is just not a long-term solution.
I decided to make up some boxes to hold the plates.
First I made a prototype to just see how closely the plates could be stacked together in a box so they would be protected and we could easily move the boxes around. The box and ten plates is actually fairly heavy, so I made three boxes.
I fooled around with the spacing and I did get it right eventually. The boxes are made out of some inexpensive pine boards with an MDF top and a plywood bottom. While I did use dados and grooves on the corners of the boxes, they’re fairly simple boxes, perfect for what I was doing.
To make the grooves to hold the plates I made a quick little jig on my tablesaw sled, This jig worked out really well and I was quite pleased with it. Yes it took a couple of attempts to get it exactly right but it did work out very well.
It’s just a tooth, if I can use that word, that is cut into a thin board that is attached to the face of the sled and then after I make the first cut the freshly cut groove in the board is slid over top of the tooth which that gives me my spacing.
It works very well, it was very simple and I was quite pleased with the outcome.
Once the boxes were all assembled and glued up and sanded I put a light coat of wiping varnish on them.
It was a bit complicated to make the lid slide on in such a way that would go over the grooves which the plates are in. The lid slides front to back in the grooves that are on the left and right sides of the box.
I realized after making the boxes that I could’ve made it much easier on myself by having the lid slide on right to left, Live and learn I guess.
To make the groove for where the lid would slide on and off I also made an integral handle because these boxes like, I said, are fairly heavy and handles on either side just make it easy to pick up.
The three boxes were easily stack one on top of each other in a cupboard somewhere.
My lovely wife is pleased with the work and the plates will be now safely stored for many Christmases to come in fact I wouldn’t doubt if these plates and boxes will be in our family for a very long time I certainly hope so.
thanks for looking.
BTW, using Tapatalk to post these is slow and cumbersome, one pic at a time, unless you pay kinda sucks.
Is there another app that works better?
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