15 year old student's 18th Century Blanket Chest [Archive]

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lou sansone

11-20-2005, 3:24 PM

scott spencer

11-20-2005, 3:45 PM

That's a great looking piece for a wwer of any age or skill level....love the design. What kind of wood is it?

Bernie Weishapl

11-20-2005, 3:59 PM

That is beautiful work. Love the wood and finish. As Scott asked what kind of wood is it.

Dev Emch

11-20-2005, 4:10 PM

Lou...
I am speechless...... looking at these photos in total awe and speechless...

Richard Wolf

11-20-2005, 4:13 PM

Great work, but then he learned from the master.

Richard

Dev Emch

11-20-2005, 4:14 PM

Lou...
Where did you guys find the original to copy? How about making some drawings available?

As to the work item. What are the egg crate partitions on the main box? Is that a type of till that comes out and has flocking in the bottom of each compartment?

David Fried

11-20-2005, 5:05 PM

Welcome Chris!!

Excellent work. Not a bad teacher either ;) .
Sure puts the pine bathroom shelves I made at 15 in shop class to shame!

Keep up the good work!

Dave Fried

Paul Comi

11-20-2005, 5:07 PM

Good afternoon all

I would like to introduce you all to some work my 15 year old student just completed. He is quite a remarkable young ww. His name is Chris.

It is a 1/5 scale exact copy of a 18th century blanket chest. It has hand cut dovetails and mitered chippendale bracket feet as well. There is a removable top divided tray lined with flock as well as the drawers. The top has an applied molding that surrounds it on 3 sides as well as a skirt and base molding.
Please extend a warm SMC welcome to "Chris"

thanks
lou

Wow! Beautiful work. I really like the dovetails and the overall style and scaling a piece like this down to use for something else like a jewelry box opens up all sorts of creative ideas for me that I had not thought of. I love the look of the full size ones but who has the room for projects like that if your home is already furnished??? Can you imagine a highboy scaled down and made into a jewelry box? Welcome Chris. Keep up the good work.

Lee DeRaud

11-20-2005, 5:27 PM

Can you imagine a highboy scaled down and made into a jewelry box?I seem to recall Scott Phillips doing that on 'American Woodshop': bandsaw'ed the whole thing out of a honking big slab of walnut.

lou sansone

11-20-2005, 6:00 PM

Dear all
The design came from one that I found in "wallace nutting furniture treasury" tome... Like others have said, the originals are 5 feet long, and this one is only 12" long. Making minitures is quite a challange. The moldings are so small and hard to handle, but the joints have to be perfect or you will see them like a sore thumb.

the color is off in the picture, but the wood is actually cherry with just a little boiled linseed oil and nitrocellous laquer.

The top egg crate compartment does lift out and there is another open area below for larger items.

This is chris' 3rd "semester" with me. We started with simpler projects
like the one now attached. Not the best picture, but it does show a nice candle or tea kettle stand that he made. The top is about 16" one solid cherry board that is turned on the outboard side of my lathe. The legs are all hand worked and have sliding dovetails to hold them in place on the center shaft.

Now for a little plug >>>>
I teach chris at my home workshop on a volunteer basis. Some of you gifted guys here at the creek might also consider doing this. There are many highschools that have abandoned woodworking all together and there are many excellent kids ( young men) who are "home schooled" that don't have the resources to have a ww class. That does not mean that folks don't want to still learn how to work with their hands. Some may take issue with me on this, but I think it is up to us older folks to do what we can where we can with what we have been given..

well that is today's sermon

regards
lou

Corvin Alstot

11-20-2005, 6:25 PM

Great looking chest. I think he is ready to go to a full size version.

I did not know you could get 1/5 scale hinges, or are those a custom?

Vaughn McMillan

11-20-2005, 6:41 PM

Lou, pass on several high fives to Chris for a very well done on the mini blanket chest, and a big attaboy to you for taking him under your wing and teaching him skills he'll have for the rest of his lfe. Even if he ends up not doing much woodworking in the future, the manual skills and lessons in planning, patience and preserverence he learns in the shop will apply to almost anything else he chooses to do in life.

Great job all around!

- Vaughn

Jason Tuinstra

11-20-2005, 6:46 PM

Chris, welcome! You're work is very, very nice. Keep up the good work, you have a very good teacher.

Bill Simmeth

11-20-2005, 6:50 PM

Awesome! Extend my congrats and welcome to Chris. You must be very proud to help this young man; his project is quite an accomplishment. Leaving Dev speechless is an accomplishment in itself! :p

John Miliunas

11-20-2005, 6:58 PM

Chris, please accept a very warm welcome to SMC! Your work certainly speaks for itself but, even more so, speaks volumes about you and your mentor! Kudo's go out to both of you!:) Simply splendid!

Hmmmm...Also might explain why my own work isn't that nice; I'm WAY past 15 and never had any instructor, much less one of Lou's accomplishments!:D (Hey, it's my excuse and my story and I'm stickin' to it!):rolleyes: :) :cool:

Andy Hoyt

11-20-2005, 7:06 PM

Great job Chris!

Great job Lou!

John Bailey

11-20-2005, 7:09 PM

Chris,

Welcome to the "Creek." Hope you stick around, we can learn from you. The chest is great. When is the teacher gonna' let you do a full size project?

John

Brian Jarnell

11-20-2005, 7:16 PM

These sorts of projects are excellent for coming to terms with ones tools.
Very nice.

lou sansone

11-20-2005, 7:17 PM

BTW guys

One tip I would like to pass on to those thinking about teaching other young woodworkers. What I have found to work pretty good is for the teacher and the student to both build the same project, but have the teacher try to keep a couple weeks ahead. We did this in the blanket chest project. chris finished his but unfortunalty mine is back in the recovery ward for a finishing problem :(

It will make a full recovery and then I will post a couple photos.

lou

Dan Oliphant

11-20-2005, 8:01 PM

Lou and Chris,
Extremely well done. student and teacher should be proud.

Mark Singer

11-20-2005, 8:37 PM

Superb ...I love it and love to see young people getting into woodworking

Roy Wall

11-20-2005, 8:40 PM

Chris,

beautiful work......you have the touch!! and being tutored by a great craftsman in nice!!

Great work guys!!

Ken Fitzgerald

11-21-2005, 7:45 AM

Chris.....Welcome to the Creek! Excellent work on the scale model chest! Excellent! You have hidden talents that are coming to the surface. You are lucky to learn from someone as talented as Lou!

tod evans

11-21-2005, 9:18 AM

lou, you are to be commended! and chris, that`s very nice work,welcome to smc. tod

John Scarpa

11-22-2005, 10:04 PM

Extremely impressive. There's a young man with lots of talent and a great instructor. Beautiful!

John Renzetti

11-23-2005, 7:16 AM

Hi Lou, Little late seeing this, but congrats to both of you. To Chris for completing this project and to you for giving your time and talent to provide Chris with the tools and skills needed.
Talk to you shortly,
take care,
John

Bob Winkler

11-23-2005, 7:58 AM

Gee Lou,

Would you believe I'm 15 and am looking for a good teacher?

Well, congrats to both you and Chris for an excellent job. Well done!

Happy Thanksgiving.;)

Bob

Corey Hallagan

11-23-2005, 9:05 AM

That is very very cool. I think you are doing a great thing Lou. Congrats to you. Excellent work Chris and welcome to SMC.

Corey

John Olson

11-23-2005, 3:13 PM

I would also like to add my thanks for showing such a nice box. I have build three blanket chests for Christmas presants this year. None of which are as nice as this one. It gives me something to shoot for in the future.

lou sansone

11-23-2005, 6:40 PM

Hi john

thanks for the complment on the box. I think if you have a good design the even a bad exicution of it still sort of looks good. I am sort of a furniture snob in the wallace nutting sense. He just did not feel that any decent furniture lines had been developed after ~ 1830 in the US. This one really has nice lines. I had to compromise a little on the drawer design. Normally these chests would not have little pulls shown here, but have some type of bail handle on them. the pulls are needed due to the 1/5 scale of the piece. I think what really makes this box is the top, waist and lower moldings, especially the waist molding.

If you dont have wallace nuttings book then you might ask santa for it.

lou