Blanket Chest Christmas Present Maple and Cherry

[keith jensen]

I made this blanket chest for my uncle. We do a name draw for the adults in my family and this year I drew my uncle. They recently moved into a larger house so I thought it would be nice to make something to help fill it up.

It is cherry with maple raised panels. I raised the panels on the table saw. I was running short on time so the finish is just rattle can poly but it came out pretty well. The bottom is lined with spanish cedar so hopefully the poly smell will dissipate. The hinges are the torsion hinges which worked out great.

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[Greg Labacz]

Beautiful chest, I'm thinking of making one my wife, but, I have never done raised panels before so how did you do it? did you cut the groves in the cherry for the panels with a table saw or with a router?

[Carl William]

That is great!! your uncle will love it. I really like the raised panels. I have built a couple of cedar chests, but never with raised panels, but now I just might...

[keith jensen]

Thanks for the kind words.

Greg, I used a couple of fingerboards to make sure the panel stayed tight to the fence and just went for it. A dado blade on the table saw made short work of the dados. If I was going to raise panels for an entire kitchen, I would use a router table or sliding jig on the table saw for sure.

Originally I was going to use eastern cedar tongue and groove until I found out Rockler and Woodcraft in my area did not stock much eastern cedar. That was when I went and veneered the spanish cedar to the plywood bottom.

This was the second year that I made my Christmas drawing gift. I think I am going to start now for next year! My nephew asked how long it took to build, I had to explain with two kids under 5 and a spouse that works full time, it makes spending a solid day out working on it impossible. A lot of work for a setup, work for a couple of hours, clean up, shut down and repeat.