Blanket chests are one of my favorite hand too projects because; the scale doesn't require too much lumber and they can be completed fairly quickly, almost everybody has a place for one, and we have two "nomadic" college-age boys who move all their earthly possessions on a regular basis.
This chest is based on one in "Blanket Chests", by Scott Gibson and Peter Turner, the Tauton Press. I had some better pictures from the book but can't seem to find them.The original is much more complicated with sloping carcass sides that are narrower at the bottom and wider at the top and a lapstrake construction lid that curves in two dimensions – waaaay over my head. I'm hoping I can pull off a Coopered lid has some reasonable semblance of a curve
1.jpg
My last project was white oak and I wanted something a little more hand tool friendly for this project. My local lumber yard had some fairly nice, semi-tight grained pine and at a $1.29 BF it wouldn't be the end of the world if I screwed it up.
The panels for the carcass are glued up, but with rabbits on the show side as a decorative element and the panels are contained in an M&T frame construction. Here is one of the panels glued up with marking out to trim to the correct height. I cut a little fat and then trim to the layout line with a shoulder plane.
2.jpg3.jpg4.jpg
Here's a little shop built cut off jig for trimming stiles for the four sets of panels to the same size (hopefully).
5.jpg
Pine is soo soft, was made which makes it really easy to work with hand tools, but for chopping the mortises I clamped the rails in my tail vice to provide extra support so I didn't blow out the sides.
6.jpg
These are absolutely my favorite layout tools – here laying out the length of the mortises. The same tools are used to layout the width of the Tennons.
7.jpg
Paring a "guide rail" to get the shoulders of the Tennons straight and even.
8.jpg