The best way to make dividers for a tray

[Derek Voigt]

So I always have great ideas in my head, unfortunately those ideas don't always translate into an easy way to construct things.

I was looking to construct the dividers like the attached picture so that they are fixed to the sides. But now I'm concerned about being able to line up all of these pieces so that they fit nicely and don't have any gaps. I could see this method as being ok if I'm doing 3 or 4 pieces, but I'm doing 11, so the margin for error is there at several different places.

My alternate idea is to do the dividers the same way, but not notch them into the sides. If I do this though I won't have a good way to attach the dividers in to the tray. The bottom will a piece of plywood lined with a piece of velvet, so I can't glue it down to that.

Any advice or suggestions? Am I stressing out too much lining everything up? Is there an easier way to do it?

Thanks

Derektray.jpg

[Jamie Buxton]

Make the dividers with half-lap joinery at the intersections. This ensures that all the parts line up when you assemble them. Non-lined-up parts would make me crazy.

You can put slots in the tray edges, as you've shown in the drawing, or you can not do it. In the latter case, the dividers are just captured by the walls of the tray, and they can't go anyplace.


Here's a tip for cutting the dividers. Y'know that Saran Wrap stuff they sell in packaging-supply places? Line up all the divider slats that go left-right, and wrap them together with saran wrap into kind of a flat sheet. Now cut the slots for the half-lap joints all at once -- likely with a dado head. While you're doing this, you just cut through the saran wrap. Do the same for the slats that go the other direction. Remove the saran wrap, and assemble. Done.
There's a couple good things about this method. First, it is fast; you're bulk-cutting lots of slots. Second, all the slots line up. If you make a little error in positioning the slat sheet for a dado pass, it doesn't matter. All the slots made in that pass will be identical.

[Jerry Miner]

I agree that half-laps is the way to go. I make a similar item fairly regularly. Rather than Saran-wrap, I've used these two methods:

1. tape the like parts together with blue masking tape--sticks better than the Saran wrap and is easily removed after the half laps are cut. Or even better:

2. cut the half-laps in solid stock BEFORE ripping the slats out of it.

If you can tape or glue or clamp the frame parts to the slat parts when cutting the slots, everything will line up perfectly, no problem. As Jamie said, if one of the cuts is off a bit, it won't matter as all the cuts in that row will match.

When I do these, I cut the half-laps just UNDER half-way through, then put a tiny drop of glue at each intersection and press together under plywood platens. By keeping the cuts under half, the top and bottom surfaces are pressed together tight. I sand to flush (drum sander) after the glue has set