Mike Allen1010
11-04-2015, 7:44 PM
Lord willing, my bride and I will celebrate our 30th wedding anniversary next year.
I recently built a Pine chest with a Coopered, curved lid as a Christmas gift for my nephew– here are couple pictures:
324685324686
I kinda like the design and am planning to build two smaller versions with some African mahogany I found in the cut off bin in my local lumber yard. I thought I might decorate one of the chests for our anniversary.This is my first time repeating a project have built before. One of the lessons I learned from my first experiences is building the coopered top to predefined dimensions is a bit iffy, so best to build those first. Here are some pictures of the two chest lids.
324689324687
My previous experience with African mahogany is the reversing, rowed grain is tough to plane without tear out. For final finish planing I used an HT Gordon plane with a 60° bed angle and was able to get a fairly tear out free surface. I haven't used this plane much because I find it difficult to push through harder domestic woods, but this mahogany is fairly soft and it was a pleasure to use.
324688324690
Here's a picture of some of the chest parts.
324691
The panels are re-sawn, book matched. Unlike the pine chest, I'm planning some decoration for the chest panels so they'll be one continuous, flat surface without the decorative rabbits I used in the pine chest. For the anniversary chest, I'm thinking about some simple Holly line and berry inlay for the top and maybe some applied carvings of intertwined wedding bands with our wedding/anniversary dates etc. for the chest front. I'm wondering if it's a bad idea to combine inlay with carvings on the same piece? I suck at design, and very much appreciate any and all suggestions.
I'm not very good at either inlay or carving and in an exploratory conversation the LOML said she wasn't too hot on the idea of carved wedding/anniversary dates etc., although to be fair I didn't give her any idea of what it might look like. Truth be told, I might just go for it anyway. If she hates it, I have the second, smaller chest that I can always make without any decoration to fall back on. Although I was thinking a nautical theme for the second smaller chest; inlayed compass rose on the top with maybe some carved shells on the front panel. Odds are she might not like that one either, but I'm pretty sure our boys will.
Thanks in advance for the feedback and suggestions.
All the best, Mike
I recently built a Pine chest with a Coopered, curved lid as a Christmas gift for my nephew– here are couple pictures:
324685324686
I kinda like the design and am planning to build two smaller versions with some African mahogany I found in the cut off bin in my local lumber yard. I thought I might decorate one of the chests for our anniversary.This is my first time repeating a project have built before. One of the lessons I learned from my first experiences is building the coopered top to predefined dimensions is a bit iffy, so best to build those first. Here are some pictures of the two chest lids.
324689324687
My previous experience with African mahogany is the reversing, rowed grain is tough to plane without tear out. For final finish planing I used an HT Gordon plane with a 60° bed angle and was able to get a fairly tear out free surface. I haven't used this plane much because I find it difficult to push through harder domestic woods, but this mahogany is fairly soft and it was a pleasure to use.
324688324690
Here's a picture of some of the chest parts.
324691
The panels are re-sawn, book matched. Unlike the pine chest, I'm planning some decoration for the chest panels so they'll be one continuous, flat surface without the decorative rabbits I used in the pine chest. For the anniversary chest, I'm thinking about some simple Holly line and berry inlay for the top and maybe some applied carvings of intertwined wedding bands with our wedding/anniversary dates etc. for the chest front. I'm wondering if it's a bad idea to combine inlay with carvings on the same piece? I suck at design, and very much appreciate any and all suggestions.
I'm not very good at either inlay or carving and in an exploratory conversation the LOML said she wasn't too hot on the idea of carved wedding/anniversary dates etc., although to be fair I didn't give her any idea of what it might look like. Truth be told, I might just go for it anyway. If she hates it, I have the second, smaller chest that I can always make without any decoration to fall back on. Although I was thinking a nautical theme for the second smaller chest; inlayed compass rose on the top with maybe some carved shells on the front panel. Odds are she might not like that one either, but I'm pretty sure our boys will.
Thanks in advance for the feedback and suggestions.
All the best, Mike