Wedding Chest

[harry strasil]

I realize this is not exotic or valuable wood, and is kinda crude, but.

Several years ago, I was asked by a friend to make his daughter a Wedding Chest as she had seen my tool boxes and wanted me to make one.

I finally gave in and he just sent me the pictures of the chest.

The main frame is tongue and groove burr oak from a 100 year old Corn Crib. The panels are hand raised and are what I believe is spalted hemlock/fir from the lumber yard. No one wanted the board because of the color, so I got it at a bargain. The top is pine from the lumber yard and doweled and edge glued, the stiffeners are held in place by a sliding dovetail with a peg at one end. The end stiffeners are also the hinges for the top.

The finish is 3 coats of marine varnish, and no stain.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v81/irnsrgn/wood/weddingchest.jpg

The walnut button on the left is the lock for the top, one on each end.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v81/irnsrgn/wood/weddingchest01.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v81/irnsrgn/wood/weddingchest04.jpg

[Mark Stutz]

Very nice Harry. How was that 100 yr. old oak to work with?;) :D I jsut finished doing my first raised panel by hand. Sure is fun and rewarding. I just hope I get faster as I go!:o :D

[harry strasil]

Had it in the basement for quite awhile Mark so it was aclimated, worked real good I strop my plane blades and chisels on a piece of leather with fine jewelers rouge on the slick side. And I don't go back and forth on the stone when honing, as it looks like a comb under a microscope, I just hold in my hand and go round and round, gives a much better edge.

And I have a woody skew angle plane modified with a depth gauge on one side and a stop depth gauge on the other, so it works really well for raising, hard to make a mistake. I do both end grains first then the sides.

I ended up using my home grown table saw to rough rip some off, so I didn't have as much planing to do.

[Mark Stutz]

Harry,
I would love to see a picture of your panel raiser. I used a combimatioma of bench and block planes, and I can see how a panel raiser would likely be faster and easier.

Mark

[harry strasil]

Its not very pretty Mark, but really functions well even on end grain.


Right side, the stop, depth gauge. This bottoms out on the bench for thicknessing the edge.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v81/irnsrgn/wood/panelraiser01.jpg

left side, the depth gauge for the shoulder towards the center of the panel.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v81/irnsrgn/wood/panelraiser02.jpg

the bottom view
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v81/irnsrgn/wood/panelraiser04.jpg

[Mark Stutz]

Thanks, Harry. That's pretty ingenious.:cool: I have an old, pretty beat up panel raiser that I'm going to try to rehab some day:confused: , when I don't have anything else to do:eek: ;) .

Mark