Good Morning All,

I am a little hesitant to post my progress here because I woodwork mostly on the weekends due to being a baseball coach and my progress is a little slow. But what the heck, here we go.

One little note before I get started. Not letting Tim Wakefield pitch last night was a load of crap!! His first and probably last All-Star game and they don't let him throw one pitch? The best knuckleballer in the history of baseball sits the pine for 9 innings, give me a break! Ok, I'll get off my soapbox about that.

I went out to the barn last night to find some white oak. (I have my own Woodmizer so I have tons of wood on hand) I found some that would be suitable for this project so I moved the wood over to my shop. I did have a few pieces of wide, clear white oak that I am going to try to use for the lid. It all depends on how much it will move. This is a piece of it on my jointer.






I continued to mill the legs and rails. I ran into one piece that was not quartersawn as much as I would like it. I needed it to be a final dimension of
1 1/8" and it was 2" thick so this is what I did. In order to try to make the face more quartersawn than flatsawn, I layed out the final board and resawed the board to try to expose more of the flecking. This is a nice little trick if you have the width to play with. Bare with me, I will take better pictures as I progress. You can see in the next pic I have the final board layed out ready to resaw.



Tilt the bandsaw and resaw trying to expose as much quartersawn ray flecks as I can.



After resawing, I took the piece to the jointer and jointed the board flat. Ran the opposite site throught the planer and this is the result.




Nice little trick if you have the extra thickness to play with. This is about all for now. I am currently getting all the wood rough milled ready to acclimate.

Tom, do you think my one piece lid will work or do you think there will be too much movement??

I will keep posting as I progress.

Jsjackson

Welcome JS

It's cool you've decided to share your build with us. Blanket chests are great projects and always well recieved by the fairer sex.

So are you building the pilgrim chest or another type? If another type do you have a plan or picture of a similar one you could share?

I really like the fact that you re-milled stock to get the appearance you wanted instead of just settling for what was there.

Good luck with it and keep us posted.

Rick

Hey Rick,

The project is the same one Tommy built. I will hopefully become a better photographer as we go along so its not so hard to see some detail. May take me a little time to get it done, but bare with me.


Jsjackson

JS, that's great, Tommy's pilgrim chest is a killer project.

Are you going to carve your panels?

I'm sure you've noticed it, but just in case, we have a forum dedicated to that project that has tons of good input from Tommy and the guys who've built it.

Good building.

Rick

Just a little update so I am not sent down to Single A ball.

I have been torn about what to do about the gouges for this project. I really want to make the panels like Tommy did so an opportunity arose on Friday, Satuday and Sunday. I was asked to call balls and strikes for our local All-Star team. At $25 per game, I could not pass up the opportunity. Ended up calling 8 games and throwing out one coach, so it was a very successful weekend. Did catch one foul ball in the lower arm so now I have seam marks on my arm. Signs of a real baseball fan!

Not the kind of progress you are use to seeing here, but now I will be going to Woodcraft and purchasing the gouges that I actually want. Funny how we woodworkers come up with the cash we need to support our habit huh!

Jeff

Jeff,

Lookingn forward to the chest coming together. This a great project that opens up a lot of possibilities for future projects as well.

And I agree about the $$$ needed for woodworking. I have been in trouble many times when I have complained about buying groceries or new shoes for the kids yet I always have enough for what I need for the projects I'm working on.

Keep up the good work, Cal

OK Jeff-

Spill it, where are ya in Northern IN? LOL. I'm looking (found one in the NW Burbs of Chicago, but seems like a pain to deal with) for someone with a Woodmizer to saw some logs I have... Mainly soft maple, some American Elm.. but Northern IN is a BIG place.. lol, and I'm NW Indiana (Near the wonderful smell of Gary)

Jim

whos Gary!

Jim,

That would be the wonderful metropolis of Fremont, IN. I would help you if you were closer but we are a long way apart down 80/90.


Jeff

Well, with working form 7am till 6pm does not leave a lot of shop time during the week, but I managed to get out to the shop tonight. Nothing real exciting yet, I am still rough milling all the parts to acclimate.







Its taking me a little while, but I'm sure I will be making some real progress soon.


Jeff

Jeff,
I don't have a 10" jointer either, and to tell the truth I like the challenge of flattening a board by hand. Go ahead and call me crazy.

You might want to keep the boards as long as possible when truing/flattening ones side. The shorter boards are a pain to keep in one place while planing. Of course you probably already knew this.

good luck with the chest!

Go, go, go!

Ok gent, progress has been a little slow but I made it out to the shop today. Basically got all the stock milled and really worked hard on the mortises and tenons today.




After making the mortises, I set them up on the bench to clean them up. Started milling the tenons on the tablesaw.



Set the material on the workbench and fitted each tenon so it was a perfect fit.



After awhile, I took a break from the mortise and tenons and worked on cutting out the pattern. I laminated mine and started cutting it out with my marking knife and the gouges.




Got one side partially put together. Everything lined up well and the fit was nice. If I am boring everyone, please let me know!





Jeff

Awesome, it's starting to come together, I see you have the gouges out for a little carving even, nice.

Rick

Ok guys, got into the shop tonight to do a little playing. I have the chest frame all together and now have turned my attention to the panels. I am having fun working on the panel, but then again like Tommy said, its fun for the first one! I am really pushing hard to complete this project. Its going to be a gift for my father. Its really special because the white oak for this project came from a tree in his front yard that we cut down and I milled on my sawmill.

WooHOOO!!. Looking good there Jeff. Keep plugging along. You will get'r done in no time. I'm sure your father will be both pleased and honored by your efforts.

Bruce

Evening guys,

Well, its been a long weekend as me and the wife have the flu. I did manage to get into the shop today. Continued working on the panels and so far I have one and one half panel done. Should be glue up time soon. I did enjoy making the dimple tools. I ended up make 3 so I could get in all the grooves. Thanks for following along.

Nice! JS, those panels are really turning out well, that's good work.

So if I was paying proper attention you just roughed out the carvings with a router and then finessed them with chisels right? What did you make your punches from?

I hope you and the wife get to feeling better.

Rick

Morning Rick,

You are exactly right on the carvings. I printed out the pattern and laminated it and just cut it out with the gouges and a small knife. Works really well having a nice solid edge to trace the pattern. I made the carvings exactly like Tommy did. Gave me a good excuse to go out and buy a Bosch Colt! Just traced the pattern on and roughed out the waste in between the lines and then finalized everything with the gouges. The only problem I have had is when I leave too much material after using the gouge, the white oak doesn't want to come off so I have to take a chisel and clean it out. This past weekend was unfortunate, if I would not have been sick, I could have really rocked and rolled in the shop but instead got minimal done. This is definately a great project and I think everyone should give her a go!

Jeff

hey jeff....i want to thank you for building it exactly the way we laid it out...i know how hard it is for everybody to stick to a script...i think you will benefit greatly from the experience...i am looking forward to seeing it done...oh yeah....we dont want to hear about the sniffles...get it done!!!!

just kidden.. not really

Welcome to Saturday. Well I made time to spend all day in the shop and really made the most of it. I finally finished the carving of the panels! WOOHOO. The first picture you can see I busted out my private stash of the finest smoke IMHO. Yep, pure Cuban!




The pictures following are the box loose fitted. Seems my panels all needed a little hand work to fit just right. They did NOT just slide in like T's. Oh ya, forgot to tell you all. For some reason, my WWII came back from Forrest and was still bent. They told me to send it back again I did not want to waste more time and spend more money on shipping so I through it on the shelf. About 3 days ago, I went to my wife and "BEGGED" for $100 for a new blade. She gave me the go ahead and I ordered the new WWII with 48 teeth. Wow, cuts unbelievable. Anyway, tomorrow I should be able to do a little work on the chest.











This chest is wearing me out! I am very tired tonight. I am working very hard to keep this chest original and not deviate from the plans. I want it as authentic as I can.

As for the finish, just about every piece of QSWO furniture I have ever built I have fumed it. I think I will do that on this piece too. What do you guys think? The aquas ammonia really makes the ray flecks pop! Any thoughts?


Jeff

Jeff,

Ok, where did you get the R&J Cuban? I have a friend in US Customs that wants to speak to you. Just kidding. Your blanket chest is looking great.

Bruce

Jeff, looking good man.

I think fuming would be a great option, in fact I'd personally prefer that to the colored paste wax, but that's just me.

Rick

Applied something tonight I learned a few years back.


We finally got rain today pretty much all day. The temperature has been in the mid 80's also. Well got home tonight and went out to the shop to work on the chest. I picked up the back, which I have all assembled and started to take it apart to do some final hand planing on. Well, while doing that I noticed that the AC in my shop was off due to a power failure from the storms that have been rolling through all day. It was really warm in my shop. The mortise and tenons did not want to come apart. They were really tight. I thought to myself "I will just trim the tenons with my shoulder plane." A little voice in the back of my head said, "he moron, I would not do that if I were you"!

Realizing that it was hot and humid in the shop, I layed down my shoulder plane, reset the A/C and headed to the house. I will let the temperature come down and let the humidity return to normal levels before working on the chest again. The temperature and humidity made everything swell.

A few years back I had the same situation and instead of letting the wood stabilize, I went and trimmed all the tenons on a project and they did fit really well that night. Two days later I went to work on the project again and the tenons were way too small! I had to shim about 14 tenons and it created a TON of extra work. I promised myself never to make the same mistake.

So, to wrap up tonight, I did not get one thing done in the shop, but made a TON of progress on it!


Jeff

Smart move on the wait. Unfortunately in FL, the humidity never goes down too much. You've just convinced me that I should probably draw bore and pin my tenons on the chest I'm building now.

Good luck with it J.

Rat