Six Drawer Chest

[Roger Myers]

This is one of my more recent projects, a six drawer chest in genuine (South American) mahogany. Designed and built as a tool chest as part of the requirements of the two year program at North Bennet Street School, I'm sure there may be some feedback about this being too much for a tool chest, but the reality is that it is a portfolio piece that showcases a persons work, and besides, I like it! In reality, this chest could be a silver chest, a collectables chest, or scaled up for many purposes. I designed it specifically to house my growing collection of carving chisels, which is the reason for the evenly spaced drawers. The chest is about 30" wide, 17" tall and 18" deep.
tool_chest_final-sm-1.jpg
The mahogany was all sourced from Irion Lumber, except for the crotch mahogany raised panel which was resawn from 6/4 stock sourced from rare Woods in Mexico, Maine, and the hardware is from Whitechapel. The curly maple drawer sides are native NH and I had sawn from a log about 18 months ago.
tool_chest_final-sm-2.jpg
All of the dovetails, and there are well over 100, are hand cut and all surfaces hand planed and scraped. The finish is hand rubbed shellac following a potassium dichromate treatment on the mahogany, except for the crotch mahogany raised panel.
tool_chest_final-sm-3.jpg
Thanks for looking,

Roger

[Andrew Hughes]

Thats really nice work,the color of the mahogany is so rich makes my mouth water.Thanks for sharing.

[Bruce Page]

What ever you want to call it, it is a heirloom chest!

Beautiful work.

[Lori Kleinberg]

Beautiful piece of work.

[Mike Henderson]

Yep, that's a beautiful chest. Great work.

Mike

[Scott T Smith]

Stunning! Thanks for sharing.

[Jim Paulson]

Roger,

Pretty cool and between the burl on the front, the beautiful mahogany and the brass pulls, the piece is exquisite. Any chisel would love that home!

Blessings on your studies at North Bennet Street School. It's got to be an awesome experience building period furniture through those folks.

Jim

[Gordon Eyre]

Excellent work in making this beautiful chest.

[Jim Tobias]

Stunning!! Roger, I agree that it could be a chest for anything of high value as it conveys high quality workmanship throughout.

Jim

[Jim Becker]

That is truly lovely, Roger! Beautifully photographed, too.

[Gus Dundon]

That is absolutely amazing! Very innovative- favorited for sure! I like the details are truly ingenious.

[Robert LaPlaca]

Oh that's a very nice tool chest..I am too thrifty (aka. cheap) to use Curly Maple as a secondary.. Congratulations on fine work on the chest

[Roger Myers]

That is truly lovely, Roger! Beautifully photographed, too.

Thanks Jim,
And I should have given photo credits and meant to...

Photos by Lance Patterson, one of the instructors at NBSS and a genius with a chisel or a camera. He shoots film in a large format camera, and it is a delight and educational experience to watch him shoot.
He has been taking pictures of NBSS furniture for decades!

Roger

[Roger Myers]

Oh that's a very nice tool chest..I am too thrifty (aka. cheap) to use Curly Maple as a secondary.. Congratulations on fine work on the chest

I'm generally pretty thrifty too, but given the cost of the mahogany, the maple was very economical,, especially since I scored a 10' log milled to 1/2" thickness (i wanted it for drawer sides and boxes) for under $100. That worked outto well under a dollar per board foot .
Thanks for all the kind comments!
Roger

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Absolutely stunning! Very nice....very elegant....very beautiful! Well done Roger!