My Carvers Lapboard

[BigDaddyO]

OK,

So i looked around a lot on the web for all the different lap boards I could find. I found some I liked and some I didn't like. Here is what I came up with. It's 31" wide by 19 1/2" high. and made out of 1/2" birch core plywood that I had left over from another project. I wrapped most of it in a red vinyl that looks kinda like leather. I found it on clearance for a $1.99 for a square yard which is all I needed.



Mike.
ps. I put more details on this in my website under my shop stuff.

[Ron T]

Hey, great job. I couldn't find it at first cause I thought I was looking at upholstered furniture.

[Iowa Carver]

Hey that's a nice looking one. Thanks for the pics!

Corey

[Simplyme]

Great work........

[dart]

Nice work. I use a towel across my lap. It catches most of the shavings. Yours would be much better.

[squbrigg]

Nice looking tray, how does it work? I like the idea of the built in flap of material on the front.

Bob

[BigDaddyO]

So, I finally got about 45 minutes of carving time with this today. I found some good and bad things.

The Good:

1. it is so easy to just set everything down if I need to quickly do something else.
2. I only had to pick up one stray chip after producing two hand fulls of chips.
3. my knife, pull saw, and misc pieces fit nicely in the tray without rolling around
4. I saw quite a few chips fly onto my chest piece and just slide right into the tray.
5. It slides under the sofa for storage. I can even leave all my tools in the tray.

The Bad:

1. Because I put vinyl on the bottom my legs were sweating pretty bad after about 10-15 minutes. Anybody with just a wooden tray, does it make your legs sweat too? if not then I might have to cut the vinyl off the bottom.
2. It's kinda hard to get the fine chips off the board cause they get stuck on the sides where the vinyl is nailed. I had to use a 6" dust pan & whisk boom.
3. It's too big to fit into my kitchen garbage can to dump the chips.

I brought it upstairs and was leaning it up against the arm of the sofa and my cat thought it was her new scratching post Angry.

[squbrigg]

I like your summery of how it works. I used felt on the bottom of mine, and it is comfortable, and doesn't make me sweat. I contoured the belly board so I wouldn't need an apron on it to catch peices, everything just falls in and there's no gap.

Looks like you have a winner of a design, so use it in good health! Well done!

Bob

[Gear Dog]

Nice work I love the fact that you built your own. As for the bad that is what they call research and development. I would much rather have found out the bad on something I built than something I bought. Seeing how the material was only 2 bucks I would pry the tacks out and find something like a micro suede. You could even run a piece across the vinyl just to keep it off of your legs. Not to sure about the felt only because the smaller shavings might get embedded in it.
Is there any padding on the bottom of the board?
Again nice work coming up with your own board.

[BigDaddyO]

nope, no padding on the bottom. I am thinking about going out during lunch today and getting some thick Cotton fabric and some more upolstry tacks and just nail it onto the bottom over the vinyl. my only fear is that it won't fit under the couch since it's kind of a tight fit now...

Mike