This is a kind of truncated build thread of a Curly Maple chest. I hadn’t planned on posting, so I neglected to take pictures of some stuff, but I hope what pics I have will be of interest to some of my fellow Creekers.
This is a chest for our 21-year-old son, and who in his infinite wisdom is moving into a house with 8 of his teammates on the water polo team, but most importantly into a room that has no door.
There must be some upside to this that completely escapes me. One thing that’s clear - it would be helpful if he had someplace to secure his most important possessions (as limited as those might be). Which was my motivation for the project.
Here is a compass rose that will be inlaid into the chest top. I’ve tried this a couple times before with varying degrees of success. What seems to work for me is saw out with a fret saw, 1/8”thick inlay material, pare/sand to desired dimensions and glue up the elements of the compass rose inlay with super glue.
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When this is done, use that to outline the recess in the chest top it. Lee Valley offers small diameter bits that fit a dremel that I find really helpful to create the majority the recess. The hardest part for me is creating the recess for the points of the cardinal directions. I’ve had the most luck with using an exacto own knife.
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Here’s a picture of the result.
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Sawing the dovetails for the carcass. I went with a nonlinear pattern: wider tales in the middle and narrow tales on the side. Looks probably asymmetrical here because there laid out to match with a baseboard moulding.
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Midway into the project, I decided was time to resurface my benchtop. It was a lot more work than an old, fat guy like me needs (benchtop is Maple), but the unanticipated benefit is the lighter color of the newly planed benchtop makes it a lot easier to see what I’m working on – who knew!
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