Mac McAtee
07-05-2004, 6:14 PM
This is my rendition of a Southern Sugar Chest. I just brought it in the house from the workshop. It is finished!
Dimensions, measuring the base it is 21 1/4" long, 14 1/4" wide and 22 1/2" high with the lid closed.
I made it from Butternut wood. I posted a picture, a few days ago, of it prior to staining. I stained with water based aniline dyes, mixed the color from the basics, red, blue and yellow with a few touches of other colors to bring out the richness in the color. After that three coats of Danish oil. Followed that with Black Bison furniture wax. Butternut is sometimes called White Walnut. It is kin to American Black Walnut and has similar grain patterns, when you stain it, if you are good, it looks a lot like Black Walnut.
Way back in the good old days the mistress of the plantation kept the sugar locked up so the "help" wouldn't steal it. Kept the key around her person and unlocked the chest to get a lump of sugar out when it was needed. Sugar Chests were not uncommon in a large plantation house.
They are peculiar to the Southeast. There are many variations of the theme. Some stand on legs. Some are lined with tin. A lot of times you will see them identified as cellarets to hold bottles of wine or whiskey at the table. Usually that is a wrong assumption. If it is of Southeastern origin, coastal and Piedmont origin, and there are ones known from the Valley of Virginia, and they lock, it is a Sugar Chest. A few have been found in KY also.
A few months ago I posted a thread about a dovetail jig that I was building. The dovetails on this where cut on that jig. Works great.
Dimensions, measuring the base it is 21 1/4" long, 14 1/4" wide and 22 1/2" high with the lid closed.
I made it from Butternut wood. I posted a picture, a few days ago, of it prior to staining. I stained with water based aniline dyes, mixed the color from the basics, red, blue and yellow with a few touches of other colors to bring out the richness in the color. After that three coats of Danish oil. Followed that with Black Bison furniture wax. Butternut is sometimes called White Walnut. It is kin to American Black Walnut and has similar grain patterns, when you stain it, if you are good, it looks a lot like Black Walnut.
Way back in the good old days the mistress of the plantation kept the sugar locked up so the "help" wouldn't steal it. Kept the key around her person and unlocked the chest to get a lump of sugar out when it was needed. Sugar Chests were not uncommon in a large plantation house.
They are peculiar to the Southeast. There are many variations of the theme. Some stand on legs. Some are lined with tin. A lot of times you will see them identified as cellarets to hold bottles of wine or whiskey at the table. Usually that is a wrong assumption. If it is of Southeastern origin, coastal and Piedmont origin, and there are ones known from the Valley of Virginia, and they lock, it is a Sugar Chest. A few have been found in KY also.
A few months ago I posted a thread about a dovetail jig that I was building. The dovetails on this where cut on that jig. Works great.