Honey Locust Hope Chest

[Allan Froehlich]

Hello SMCreekers!

I built this hope chest for a friend last year. It is constructed out of honey locust with walnut inlays and has a cedar lining. The approximate dimensions are 20 inches tall, 24 inches deep, and 32 inches long. I'd estimate that it weighs in around 100 lbs.

This project had three lessons tied in with it:
#1: What ever amount of time you think a project will require, multiply it by at least 2, but a factor of 16 can be reasonable too.
#2: Honey locust will dull your tools like bloodwood. This project will improve your sharpening skills.
#3: Don't attempt to make 80 foating mortises again without a horizontal slot mortiser.

[Joe Shinall]

Beautiful chest. I am in need of a design for a toy box for a future nephew/niece in law. Is this your own design? Really looks different from most. Great job.

[Jerry Balzell]

Nice work. I really like the walnut inlay. Is that walnut plugs on the inside.

Jerry

[Danny Hamsley]

That is beautiful work.

[Allan Froehlich]

Thanks for the complements.

This design is an original. I was provided with a set of dimensions and the expectation that it had to be "tough" when completed. The rest was left to my imagination.

Jerry, the pegs are walnut too.

[John Keeton]

Allan, great job on the chest, and yes, you chose a tough wood to work with! And, your lessons were well learned. If you don't have a Domino, this would have been a great project for one.

Nice design, and carried out very well, too! Love the inlay/plug contrast.

[gary Zimmel]

Nice work on the hope chest Allan

[Brent Ring]

Really Nice work!

[John Shuk]

Nice chest. It is nice to see something made of honey locust. I always enjoy seeing woods that are off the beaten path being used.

[Allan Froehlich]

Allan, great job on the chest, and yes, you chose a tough wood to work with! And, your lessons were well learned. If you don't have a Domino, this would have been a great project for one.

Nice design, and carried out very well, too! Love the inlay/plug contrast.

A Domino might be a good idea, but I think one of those Felder things would suit me better.

Nice chest. It is nice to see something made of honey locust. I always enjoy seeing woods that are off the beaten path being used.

Dispite my distaste for honey locust's working characteristics, I think I will use it again when I build a pair of saddle boxes for my motorcycle. Maybe I'll use black locust this time.

[Richard Link]

[QUOTE=Allan Froehlich;1423744]A Domino might be a good idea, but I think one of those Felder things would suit me better.



Or a multi-router for the mortises. That would have been fun. Every time I use that thing it makes me grin.

Very nice work by the way. Did you do the inlay by hand or with a router?

Richard

[John Shuk]

Black locust is by far the worse of the two. If you can manage it it is a good wood for the elements though. Heck teak is pretty rough on tools too. It seems not to have stopped people from using it.

[Allan Froehlich]

I did the inlay by hand.

I scored two parallel lines with a marking guage. I then defined the edges with a chisel. I used a set of Dockyard dog-leg chisels to scoop out the material in the middle.

Kudos to Dockyard chisels. I did not have to sharpen them once during the whole project.

[Van Huskey]

Love it! The inlays really make a statement.

[Richard M. Wolfe]

Very nice work and one of a kind. I was wondering when I first read honey locust in the title how much it weighed.