Pics of Pine blanket chest – finished

[Mike Allen1010]

This is the last part of a pine blanket chest build, previous build pics I think are above.

Planing the Cooper, curved chest lid.
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Adding the rabbits along the long grain that will capture the lid panel in the chest top frame.
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Using a cutting gauge and router plane to do the cross grain rabbits.
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Using the template to lay out the groove in the frame for the Cooper chest lid and a dry fit.
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The lid glued up. The pine gets dirty so easily that there are multiple “final cleanup” planings. Personally, I really like the look/color of the unfinished pine – IMHO super clean and bright. However the Boss said “it should be darker”. I ended up adding a stain that turned it the color peanut butter (although my initial description of the color was much less appetizing). It seems like every time I try and add color to a project it never works out well. I’m resolving in the future; whatever color/tone the wood is – that’s it – shellac and paste wax for me!


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[Mike Allen1010]

Fitting the lid to the rest of the chest. I thought the reference services for both pieces were flat and coplanar before I put them together, somehow it took 20 minutes of planing to get them to fit reasonably.
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Plowing the groove for the bottom in an African mahogany sliding till.

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Dovetailing the till together.
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Using a shop built, panel gauge to layout final width for the till bottom. For me a panel gauge is a fundamental tool (sort of the Neander equivalent of the rip fence on your table saw). The first version I built had a blade at the end of the arm. Now I can’t see cutting gauge line, so a pencil is more practical.
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Rabbiting the edges of the till bottom. I’ve had this Japanese rabbit plane for 30 years and the blade is probably some of the best steel in my shop.
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I’ve had trouble avoiding tear out with the rowed grain of African mahogany. This is a St. James Bay kit Norris style infill plane that works great for me with difficult grain woods.

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[Mike Allen1010]

Cleaning up the dovetails after assembly, always one of my favorite things.
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The sliding till inside the chest.
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Drilling the mortice for the lock. Kind of a white knuckle or because the rail is relatively thin and the margin to avoid catastrophic blowout is small. In cases like this, I prefer the brace and bit take – takes longer for me to totally screw it up.
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Finally some pictures of the finished chest with plywood bottom and cedar lining.
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This chest will be a Christmas gift for my nephew (I’m sure my sister will hate me when it comes time for them to try and get it home). I really enjoyed building this in pine, however the mahogany for the till was really fantastic.

[Mike Allen1010]

My local hardwood yard had a bunch of mahogany cut offs in their discount bin. I’m really tempted to build a another, slightly smaller version mahogany – I might just try and keep this one for myself, if I can slip it by the boss.

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Thanks for looking,

All the best, Mike

[Don Emmerling]

Mike I think you sure hit a home run here. Craftmanship is great.

[Barry Dima]

Stunning. And from reading through this and the prior thread, sounds like you had some fun too.

[Nick Stokes]

Wow, you are very talented. That is a great work of art, and an awesome addition to your family.

Just wow.

[Jerry Olexa]

Wow!!! Very nice detail work....Great results!!!

[Steve Beadle]

Great job, Mike! I really enjoyed the pictures of this beautiful project. I find myself "pining" to build one for myself!

[Don Slaughter]

Mike, you continue to amaze me! What a craftsman you are! That is a really nice chest....heirloom quality. Wish you would bring it to our next SDFWA meeting 'Craftsman's Corner' http://www.sdfwa.org/next-meeting/
Thank you so much for posting your work!

[Tom Vanzant]

Mike, hardwood yard off-cut bins can be a treasure trove. I ran across 4/4 soft maple ripped to 1-1/4"+ wide that ended up as many cutting boards. Same for knotty walnut off-cuts...that swirly grain makes beautiful Colt 1911 grips.

[Brian Holcombe]

The chest is fantastic! Really wonderful detail work.

[Andrew Hughes]

Hey Mike thats pretty nice,reminds me of a Treasure chest.I like the cooperd top.

[Reinis Kanders]

I really like it! Pine was a good choice for a big chest, it is probably still reasonably light.

I also like whiteness of unfinished pine, but even seal-coat shellac seems to yellow it a bit. Is there any way to really keep it white? Maybe soap based finish, but that would probably yellow with age as well.

I found that Flexner has a partial answer to my question. Seems that soap finish on pine is done in Denmark, it works, but is high maintenance, so it would not work on a chest that well.
http://www.woodshopnews.com/columns-...rniture-finish.

[Mike Cherry]

Mike, it looks fantastic!