Blanket Chest QSWO

[Todd Plentovich]

My recent project is a small blanket chest with book matched panels and dovetails. The chest has no stain and is finished with shellac.

The lid has the soft close Sugatsune lid stays.

I see all the great work that you'll do and it inspires me to go make something.

[Thomas Canfield]

Looks like pretty great work to me. What is size?

[Todd Plentovich]

It's 15 X 36 and 18 tall (inches).

[Terry Beadle]

Really a good job!!
Thanks for posting.

[David Utterback]

I like it! Thanks for posting.

[Phil Stone]

Nice rays!

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Nicely done Sir!

[Mike Henderson]

Very nice. I like the way you matched the wood when you glued the front panel.

Mike

[Scott T Smith]

That really came out well. You did a great job edge matching the grain and ray fleck too.

[Tim Brosnan]

Nice job Todd. I'm just getting into dovetailing. What's your favorite technique? Jig/router, table saw, hand cut? Thanks for posting.

[Todd Plentovich]

Thanks for all the comments. I'm using this chest as a coffee table in place of a larger conventional coffee table. I'm enjoying the smaller footprint and the storage.

Tim B;

I made the dovetails on a chest by hand once. They turned out good after I made some repairs. As a result of all the manual work, I think I'm still suffering from tendonitis in my hands and arms. So I bought the D4R Pro Jig from Leigh. The folks on this site had good things to say about it. Expensive, but after a couple of projects the guilt from the expense is gone.

The jig is great and easy to use. You have to use both ends of the jig when your dovetails are not symmetrical. This allows you to make sure the carefully selected face boards are correctly oriented. Otherwise, tearout is about the only other thing to worry about and there are ways to avoid that.

In this project, I could cut all the dovetails in one hour with the jig. That frees up a lot of time/energy to put into other areas of the project.