Chest for Mom - Completed Just in Time for Xmas

[Paul Murphy]

Outstanding piece! I love the dovetailed top, and the wood you selected for the case sides and top. Your Mom will love it.

[Ron Brese]

I was participating in a show sponsored by the local arts council and one gentleman thinking he was paying one of my pieces a compliment said "that looks store bought". You have to appreciate that they want to compliment your work, however it shows how clueless people are about what makes up a quality piece of woodworking. By the way, that's a nice gift, I'm sure she will love and will cherish it.

Ron

[Bruce Page]

Very, very nice Chris. Your Mother is going to love it!

[Tony Shea]

The extra time spent on getting your feet proportioned really payed off Chris. There is nothing left to say about the peice that I would have done differently or anything of the sort. You nailled it man. And time spent is nothing to worry about, eventually things will speed up. Just learning where to spend your time is a big deal. I'm also slow in the eyes of everyone around me but most do not know what it takes to make fine furniture peices like this.

The absolute only criticism is in the picture taking. It'd be nice to have something to reference the size of the peice. When I first looked at it today I thought it was a full sized chest of drawers, until remembering back on your thread about it earlier. I bet many see this as a full sized chest.

Again, great job.

[Chris Griggs]

Thanks again everyone for the very kind compliments. And Tony, thank you for the awesome compliments and for the previous input on the feet - it was sooooooo helpful!

No, I'm not overly concerned about the amount of time it took. Any time I take on a major project, I try to take on something that is just outside of my current comfort zone and that will give me the opportunity to learn some new skills. Anytime your learning as you go things take extra time. In my opinion though, it's the best way to learn new things. I'm guessing if/when I do a similar build it will probably take me about 3/4s or even half the time, just because I'll have done it before.

Actually, one of the biggest take aways from this build had to do with pacing and order of operations. Folks often talk about how in neander woodworking it's better to break things down into their rough dimensions before doing any major flattening and thicknessing by hand, so you won't need to remove as much material to get things flat. Parts are generally dealt with more individually rather than batched out like in a more power tool oriented shop. This individual dimensioning works well for more standard sized components, but when you have lots of little similar components (e.g. dividers and drawer parts) it is much more efficient to take a more power tool minded approach and dimension in mass before breaking things down. When I got to the drawers I very quickly realized that I was wasting a ton of time trying to individually dimension each drawer part. Thinking about it now, it seems like this should have been obvious up front, but I had gotten in the habit of doing things in a certain order, and didn't really think to do things differently until I realized how much time/energy I was wasting on all those little parts. Learning when, where, and why to do things one way vs. another way is one of those things you only learn within the context of a build.

Regarding the pic, I was going to do another with the cat which has become my standard scaling device lately, but didn't want to bother. I agree, a scaled pic is always a good idea, but honestly I'm kinda glad I didn't because it's been fun to have people comment that they thought it was full sized until they saw the dimensions.

Thanks again everyone. It's great to be able to share my work and progress as a woodworker with all of you!

[Mike Allen1010]

Congratulations Chris, your jewelry chest is awesome!

I love all the elements you've incorporated to this project: the proportions, the beautiful figure on the carcass, the wood combination and the very well executed joinery (especially the exposed dovetails on the top).

You must be very proud of what you've accomplished here and I'm sure your Mom will be thrilled! I would encourage you to get some pictures of Mom on Christmas morning when she sees your gift. I'm guessing they will be increasingly valuable to you over the years.

Thanks again for sharing your work – it's very inspirational!

Merry Christmas,
Mike

[Christopher Charles]

Congrats Chris--a lovely piece so well done that I too thought it was a full-sized chest at first. I think the time you spent on design was well spent. And I do know a store or two that would place a piece like that (galleries in portland and seattle...).

one question--did you have a reason to have the grain on the left side have the 'cathedrals' point down?

Again, fantastic--i'm sure your mother will be speechless.

Cheers,
Chris

[Chris Griggs]

one question--did you have a reason to have the grain on the left side have the 'cathedrals' point down?

Thanks Chris. Yes I did have a reason. The the grain orientation was based on what I thought looked best for the top of the chest. I wanted a continuous grain match so the sides are simply the pieces from the same board that were cut from either side of where I took the top piece from. The orientation of the cathedrals was simply a biproduct of this decision.

Funny enough, with finish it doesn't actually look like it was cut adjacent from the same piece, I keep looking at it thinking I may have oriented the board on the left side wrong, but I didn't - I guess there was just a sudden change in grain pattern and color right where I cut the board.

[Jeff Wittrock]

Thats just beautiful. Well done. I think the sycamore and cherry go very well together.

I showed it some folks at work earlier this week and received the ultimate non-woodworker compliment from several colleagues . "Wow, that looks like it came from a store." That one always makes me laugh....

Very much like the one I have heard from my brother: "Man, that thing looks factory". He sincerely meant it as a compliment, and I took it as such .

[Allen Breinig]

That is fantastic work I don't care how long it took. Did you sign it and date it?
WOW!

[Brent VanFossen]

Add my name to the long list of those seriously impressed.

[Chris Griggs]

That is fantastic work I don't care how long it took. Did you sign it and date it?
WOW!

IMG_0582.jpg IMG_0581.jpg

The message is both sincere and intended to be slightly silly - my mother is more than familiar with my sense of humor (in my mind the message is also a small reference to inscription to Bills brother's Hanzo sword in Kill Bill 2)

[Brian Ashton]

Hope she's got a strong heart cause that will blow her away.

[David Keller NC]

Chris - Take it from someone with bad experience in this area that wishes he'd been a bit more diligent - take good photos of your work. The chest is very, very nice, and I'm sure you put a boatload of work into it.

While flash-photos in a darkened room is a-ok for forum purposes, I can guarantee that 4 or 5 years down the road you'll wish you'd taken more, and even though it will stay in the family (a lot of my work is at my parent's and brother's houses), it's not always easy to get more photos once the piece is in the hands of a new owner. Even if it's got a conducive background in its new setting (definitely not always the case), there may be papers, chotskies, and all manner of things normal to a home that would have to be moved to get a new pic. And - your piece will definitely change color and shade (perhaps a lot) over the next several years, and you'll want a photo in its initial state.

Even though I'm nearly a professional photographer with 35+ years of experience, I've still been lazy about photographing my own woodwork, and I'm eternally sorry for that now - I'd estimate I have good photos of perhaps 1/10 to 1/15th of what I've built.

That doesn't mean rush out and buy a new camera, photo lightsl, backgrounds, and all the other accoutrements of photography, but what you should do is take a few pics of your chest in diffuse natural light with no flash with whatever camera you have (even if it's just a cell phone). Direct sunlight won't work, nor will flash photography. An ideal situation is a north-facing window on a cloudy day.

[Chris Griggs]

Thanks for the photo advice David. I hate the flash too - I actually tried really hard to get enough light so I wouldn't need to use it, but could not make it happen where I had set the chest up to take the shots. Maybe I'll cover up my workbench with something, but the chest on there and try to take some photos. That's the part of the house with the most natural light (two windows and a skylight). Great advice man... Thanks!