Neander Chest- On- Chest Build Pics

[Mike Allen1010]

I thought my fellow neanders might enjoy some hand tool build pics. As they say, “lots of ways to skin a cat", and I always enjoy seeing how my fellow neanders do things. Let me know if this isn’t worthwhile -- I certainly don't want to abuse the privilege of posting here.

With our youngest son going away to school for the first time, my wife and I recently became empty -nesters. Consequently we've moved from a house where I had built-in storage for my clothes to a smaller house where I didn't. When I asked my wife if I could have a drawer in one of the six dressers/wardrobes she uses I was given a 1' x 1' plastic bin. Only threats of the most dire retribution from the LOML prevent me from posting pictures.

A perfect reason to begin building the chest- on- chest in the picture below from Glen Huey’s excellent book "Building 18th-Century American Furniture".

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This is what my personal favorite books of furniture projects I love the style and construction directions and pictures are excellent -- just enough information for a fairly competent woodworker to be able to build, without unnecessary detail.

I shrunk the horizontal and vertical dimensions about 15% so it was eye level, and added a solid wood top. I also exposed the sliding dovetails for the drawer dividers. I'm thinking about maybe trying to add a bit of carving to the top and bottom of the fluted columns but we'll see about that...

The primary wood is cherry , secondary poplar. I'm sure dimensioning glued up panels it's boring for many people, but I frankly enjoy doing this with hand tools. I buy my lumbar rough surfaced so I don't do any surface planing before glue up. Here are my primary tools:
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First up is ripping a reference straight edge. I always use the saw bench with clamps. I use a larger saw bench with some mass so the workpiece doesn't move around, even without me kneeling on it. I shoot for a sawn surface that cleans up to the layout line with 3-5 passes from the jointer plane.

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My longest jointer is a ECE wooden plane that I've added a fence to -- I saved this one for the last couple passes so stay sharp longer.
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[Mike Allen1010]

Crosscutting panels to length -- with a little practice for easy to get straight and square edges . It can save a little time if you can learn to saw accurately on either side of the layout line.
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A few passes with LV Bevel UP jack cleans up crosscut edges. I don't worry about spelching on the far side because ripping to final width will eliminate that piece.
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Once the glue the panels are dimensioned, I flatten the surfaces: a couple diagonal passes from each side with a shop built plane (thank you Derek Cohen for the tutorial!) with camber somewhere between a scrub plane and a jack, a #5 with the grain, and finally a smoothing plane.

Cut the rabbit in the back edge of panels for the carcass back -- I start with the Stanley number 78 to establish the shoulder and move to rabbet plane.

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Gang carcass sides together in the face vice (I use a twin screw) and dead men for cutting dovetails. A little tuneup of my shop built backsaw was called for:

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A coping saw takes care of the waste and a paring chisel for outside shoulders helps establish crosscuts to finish the tails.
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[Don Kingston]

WOW that is nice.

[Mike Allen1010]

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I like using a skewed rabbit to plane a small, rabbit on the tails to help register them for marking pins.
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One pins and tails are cut, a little finish cleanup planing before assembly - this is a shop built infill plane with Strunella tool works cast body and a Hock blade. I'm not much of a tool maker, but this one actually turned out to be a good user:
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Now the glue up of carcass sides and poplar bottom.
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The horizontal dividers that stabilize the upper margin of the lowercase are inset into dovetail sockets on the face frame. Here is cutting the dovetail sockets;
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To clean out the acute corners in the dovetail sockets I've ground a couple narrow chisels at an angle. I suck at sharpening narrow chisels -- always seems to result in a big gouge -- I hate that! For narrow chisels I use a motorized, horizontal sharpener – I made some round Lexan plates with a captured bolt that threads into the rotating plate. I face these with micro abrasive film. Even I can get a consistently sharp edge if all I have to do is hold the tool's steady on a revolving abrasive medium!
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[Mike Allen1010]

The horizontal dividers are fit to the case side with sliding dovetail joints, - I couldn't make them with a router if my life depended on it. I use an ECE dovetail plane to create the tails. Very easy to taper them so that they seat solidly only in the last couple inches.
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I plane the dovetails on the horizontal dividers before ripping to final width to remove any spelching.
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I admittedly have a handsaw problem. I enjoy dimensioning simple non-show components like the door drawer runners and guides. As long as sawing and planing are true you can pretty much knock these out. For crosscutting narrow stock like this you don't really need layout lines once you get a feel for sawing straight and square.
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For "shooting" end grain, particularly on wider pieces, I like to use this skew bladed plane -- for me faster/easier than a shooting board and accurate as long as the saw cuts are decent.

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Here is the final fit:
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[Mike Allen1010]

I enjoy sawing M&T joints like those that attach the drawer runners to the horizontal dividers (not so much fun chiseling out the mortises). To help me keep things straight on the bench I use dark totes for crosscut saws and lighter totes for the rip saws.
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I really suck at the whole spatial orientation vision thing so after cutting one set of M&T joints for drawer guides I quickly opted for dowels instead- much faster and easier for me -- especially for joinery that won't bear lots of stress.
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Finally here's some pictures of the bottom case completed. Sliding dovetails turned out okay and the time I spent matching boards seem to have worked as the side panels don't totally look like a jigsaw puzzle.
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Next up cabriolet feet -- the problem is band saw is broken -- this can't be good…

All the best, Mike

[Tony Wilkins]

Thanks for sharing! I'll definitely bee watching for the rest of the build.

[Jack Curtis]

Looking real good, Mike. I especially like the way you laid out the sliding tails.

[Chris Griggs]

Mike, you are totally out of control! That a great build to take on. I have a digital copy of Huey "American Classics" that has a couple high chest & chests-on-chests that I hope to have the courage (and time) to take on some day. The Philly Museum of art as a couple examples that would he fun to reproduce some day as well.

Its pretty crazy how far your woodworking has come over the past couple years; your projects just keep getting more and more intense and you totally pull them off. You sir are an X-man of woodworking.

[Paul Saffold]

Mike thanks for taking the time to document and explain your methods. I appreciate it and hope you will continue as you complete the build.
Paul

[george wilson]

I love early American furniture in curly woods!! Who made that chest? It just glows.

You seem pretty organized. Nice saw handle! Years ago,I was convinced that cherry was the most beautiful wood. I made several guitars with cherry backs and sides.

[Maurice Ungaro]

Mike, be careful. You make that thing too nice, and your bride will claim it as her own. You might be back to the 1' x 1' plastic bin!

[Will Boulware]

Awesome thread, and a very impressive build so far! As to your comments about this being worthwhile, I think we need more of this kind of thing! Thanks for taking the time to post this. It's a lot of fun to follow along!

[Steve Voigt]

Looks good so far, Mike. I really look forward to seeing your progress.

[Tom Bloom]

Wow, Mike your my hero!! I am working on doing more hand tool work and less machine work you are a true inspiration.