Repairing The Tray

One of my favorite early projects on this website was the tray.  Though simple, it has proved to be very useful.

Check out the original tray post here

However, after 6 years of long and hard use as a dish rack, the wood panel started getting moldy.  Nasty!  Time to upgrade to metal!

I had trash picked this trash can from the dumpster at my old apartment with the intent to use the sheet metal for the bicycle trailer 2 project, but ended up not needing it.  I originally thought it was aluminum, but these are actually made of stainless.

Doesn't throwing away a trash can cause a rift in the time-space continuum?

While attempting to disassemble the cylindrical form, I discovered the metal was joined together by a hem and some glue.

It proved too difficult to unfold, so I just cut out the seam with aviation snips.

I also trimmed off the top and bottom which were hemmed, resulting in a clean flat piece of sheet metal.

Then using my large square, laying out the dimensions for the tray piece.

Punching the corner locations with my Whitney punch.

I initially allowed 1 inch on every side for a hem, but decided it was too much and cut an extra .300" off each side.

Then trimming the corners so they fold over cleanly, and filing all the edges.

Since I didn't have a bending brake available, I clamped it to my table and hit it with a rawhide hammer.  This was one of the hammers I won from the Bar Z Summer Bash Ox Tools challenge.

Hammering down the hems.

Then because I wasn't satisfied with the flatness of the bend, crimping the edges with vise grips.

Transferring the hole locations from the old wood piece.

Then punching the mounting holes.

All done.  Looks like everything is chrome in the future!

Since this is intended for food, I made sure to clean the metal thoroughly with acetone and soap to remove any thought that it was ever part of a trash can.  This should last me at least a few decades now!

Scrap Attack is part of this nutritious dinner.