Twin Blanket Chests

[Greg Tatum]

Very nice Todd....I think the back stories all y'all provide is what lends so much interest to the work that is posted....like the wedge-shaped panels on these chests and what the craftsman must go thru to produce what will undoubtably become an heirloom....thanks for keeping this hobbiest inspired.....now the questions....how did you joint the tapered edges? did you gang the mating edges and pass them together? Do you use a home made box-joint jig and if so can we see it?

Greg

[Jack Young]

Todd-

Beautiful work and, more importantly, "creative" work. This kind of post does much more for those of us entering serious woodworking, as it opens up the imagination and sense of possibilities. Thanks for sharing. Let us see the end product.

Jack

[Chris Padilla]

Looks nice, Todd, and I think you may have something with the wedged panels...nice effect. I got me some 'poxying to do on some beautifully spalted bookmatched pieces of maple. A few checks and some pieces need stabilized and I need to dig out the sawdust made by some borers and fill that in. However, I'm going to play with coloring by pigments and sawdust.

I already know that maple dust make a chocolate color but that pine dust make a color more close to maple! Strange, eh?

[Todd Burch]

Jason, the only router bits used were:

1) a 45 degree chamfer bit to for the exposed top corner of the center lid panel,
2) a 1/8" mortising bit for the hinge mortises
3) a 3/8" roundover on the top edge of the front 3 sides of the main box itself.

Other special cuts:
I used a 1/4" dado blade to cut the grooves on the lid panel and the lid frame. I used 2 Sears moulding heads (one a tongue, one a groove) to T&G the cedar for the bottom. The chamfers on the plinth and lid-wrap moulding were cut on the tablesaw.

Nathan, the wedged panels were pretty easy. If you can get a good glue joint on a square board then getting an equally good glue joint on a wedged board is really no different. The only issue I had was boards wanting to squeeze out while being clamped. If the glue was still roo runny and slick when I clamped panels up, I had to use an extra clamp or two perpendicular to the typical clamp direction, with one end on the fat edge of a wedged board and the other end on a different fat edge.
Jim - expose - I haven't even changed the knives yet! (but I'm getting ready to - I'm starting to get some "jump")

Greg - a treat to me in all this working with wedged boards, was picking the best end of a wedged board to send through the jointer first. It is definately easier with a wedged board!! The grain was a lot more obvious visually with this wood. As I see it, the jointer doesn't know that the two edges are not parallel, and I'm not going to tell it!!

For the box joints, I usually do not gang cuts. Too much "wood management" trying to both keep them and aligned and slide them all past a 110 mph carbide blade. No thanks!! Plus, with the sizes of these panels all being 16" wide and either 22"+ long or 34"+, they were too big to stack dado cut.

My box joint jig has a lot of miles on it. Its homemade (shop made?) out of 1/4" ply, MDF and solid wood. When I made it, I used cherry for the indexing pin. Bad choice as cherry is too soft and it's getting thin where wood has been rubbing against it for 1,000s of cuts. (I'm sure). Just on these two cases, there are 16 cuts per each end of a panel, 2 ends per panel, 4 panels per case, 2 cases, so that is 256 cuts just on this project.

I could post a shot of my current one, or, if you don't mind waiting, I'll do a photo expose/article while making some new ones. I'm down to two right now - a 1/2" jig and a 3/32" jig (for REALLY tight fingers on small boxes). The 1/2" jig is about worn out, and I need a 1/4" jig and a 3/4" jig. I'll probably make them right after both my dado blade sets get sharpened. (Plus, since I aligned my tablesaw top to the blade a couple months ago, it is just a SLIGHT bit off now too.)

Todd

[Jim Becker]

Jim - expose - I haven't even changed the knives yet! (but I'm getting ready to - I'm starting to get some "jump")

Yea, but we haven't heard anything since you took delivery with a "few little issues"...I'm just being a "picture police" surogate and suggesting that the boys and girls would love to learn more about your new machinery!

[Jerry Olexa]

Todd, truly OUTSTANDING work! Difficult circumstances, lots of patience and your usual craftmanship and you made it happen! Great job AND great story!

[Michael Stafford]

Once again I learned something that I will be able to put to almost instant use. I have a bunch of walnut that can be used similarly to great effect. Thanks for sharing. Really look forward to seeing the finished pictures. You know that lady will love her chests from her wood from her tree and she'll always keep a warm spot in her heart for you.