How do I make a catch-all or valet tray with a bowl and tray bit?

What the project is

A bowl and tray bit cuts a flat floor with a radius where the floor meets the wall, so the dish comes off the machine with no sharp inside corner to sand. The whole job is three toolpaths: an optional V-carve on the top face, a Pocket for the dish, and a Profile to cut the tray out.

Steps

1. Stock and job. Measure the blank with calipers and type the real thickness into Job Setup. One published build used 2.076 inch pecan with a dish 1.25 inches deep. Leave enough floor under the dish for strength.
2. Vectors. Draw the outer shape with rounded corners, then use Offset Vectors inward to make the dish outline. Make the inside corners of the dish outline a little larger than the bit radius, which is one of the community fixes for a stepped or chamfered top edge.
3. Tool. Measure the bit and add it to the Tool Database. The official documentation describes a Form Tool as a vector of the right-hand half of the cutter drawn to scale, selected before you create the new tool.
4. V-carve first, while the top is still flat.
5. Pocket the dish. Community starting points for a bowl bit are 80 to 120 inches per minute, 0.1 to 0.15 inch per pass, and a stepover of roughly a quarter of the diameter to avoid floor ridges. Test on scrap.
6. Finishing pass. Duplicate the Pocket toolpath with a small stepover (one maker went from 30% to 5%). Keep the same final depth on both: the bit is narrower near its tip, so a finishing pass that runs deeper also cuts a wider wall.
7. Profile last, Outside, with ramps and tabs.

Pro tips

• When one Pocket toolpath has several tools, the first tool clears what it can and later tools only cut what was missed. If you rough with a cheap end mill to save the bowl bit, give the bowl bit its own Pocket toolpath so it sweeps the whole floor and wall.
• No bowl bit? The software maker's free Catch-all Tray project forms the dish with the Moulding Toolpath and two ordinary tools.
• For holding and flipping, see the entry on holding your workpiece down.