An Accessory Tray

I wanted a simple tray to put on my mahogany legs that would be simple to put on and take off and wouldn't leave ugly hardware on the legs when not in use. I came up with the idea to use door security hasps to hang the tray. The tray would not be a 'stressed member' and therefore would not need to be tightened down securely; but would only have to 'hang' with minimum of fuss and bother. I purchased some inexpensive hasps (zinc with a brass 'finish' instead of the solid brass version) and then started cutting the wood. I chose 1/2" plywood, good one side and laid out the needed cuts. The layout was set so that the tray so that it would be 14" on a side inside of the truncated ends. This meant an equilateral triangle 19 1/2" on a side. To make the flats on the ends I measured 2 3/4" in from each corner and just cut it off. Then the hardware pilot holes were drilled and the tray was finished with some mahogany stain and a coat of Spar Varnish Once the finish was dry the hardware for the tray was installed. The supplied screws were much too long for 1/2" plywood so I cut them off and grinded them flat with the Dremel tool Once that was done I used masking tape to get the rough position of each 'hanger' and drilled the centre hole and just tightened down one with the needed screw. Then I used the tape again and hung and marked the other two so that tray laid level both directions and put the centre screw for each in place. Once that was done I positioned each 'hanger' using a bubble level, put the remaining screws in place and tightened things down. By the time I was done the tray was about within 1/3 of a bubble to level (nothing is perfect) and it went into place with just a bit of 'wiggling'. Back to the HEQ5 Project pages Back to Ozzzy's Astronomy Pages