The Traveling Anarchist's Tool Chest - Part 1

Here's my progress so far on the tool chest. I got a very good deal on some wide Sapele so I decided to go with that. It's starting to become one of my favorite woods. It stays dead flat, saws beautifully, and responds to the chisel very well. The interlocked grain, while a bit difficult to plane, I think will prove to be worth the effort in the long run.

For the most part I lifted the dimensions from Chris Schwarz's tool chest. I tweaked the height slightly by adding two inches. The case is 38" long, 16" tall, and 18" deep. He posted this drawing and I think the dimensions, proportions, and functionality are great.

So far I've gotten the dovetails and pins sawn. Tomorrow I will chop out the baselines of the pin boards and assemble the case. I'm going to tongue and groove the boards for the bottom, so hopefully I can get started on that while the glue dries. I'm going to use hide glue (Old Brown Glue) for every bit of this project.

Cherry Jewelry Box

Here is a cherry jewelry box I just finished. The wood is nice air dried stuff from my Amish friends in Ohio. The joinery consists of dovetails for the carcass, dovetails & shiplaps for the tray, and bridle joints & grooves for the lid. I like to leave the scribe lines in my dovetails but understand that others don’t.  The moldings are simple miters with a nice chamfer. The adhesive for this (and all of my other projects) is hide glue. I like Old Brown Glue from William Patrick Edwards in San Diego. The finish is three coats of Tried & True oil varnish. Each coat is applied then left to dry for a week under a fan. After the first coat is dried it is burnished with 0000 steel wool. Then each additional coat is burnished with a fine linen cloth after drying. I like to heat the oil to 140° before applying nice thin coats with a linen cloth.

All work is done by hand. All of the surfaces are left from the smooth plane.

Photos are by my good friends Joe & Stephanie. 

Dovetail Class

I'm teaching a dovetail class this Saturday for beginner and intermediate woodworkers.
Here I have all of the stock prepped: 6 total quartersawn mahogany dovetail alignment boards and 4 poplar practice pieces per student.

We'll be using David Barron's dovetail guide for the class. I really think this tool will change the way dovetails are taught in the coming years. I firmly believe the guide allows beginners to build muscle memory as well as their sawing skills while being able to accomplish very nice dovetails. It takes a lot of the stress off a beginner and I'm very excited to start teaching this method!

Image Source: Barron, David. Dovetail Guides. Digital image. http://davidbarronfurniture.co.uk/. David Barron, 2011. Web. 13 Nov. 2014. <http://davidbarronfurniture.co.uk/david_barron_tools.asp?pg=1&id=5>.

Walnut Knockbox

Here's a dovetailed knockbox I've recently completed for a client in Florida. It's made of some nice air dried American Black Walnut, from the Amish in Ohio. Finished with a few coats of Osmo. A little metal housing rests inside of it.

Mahogany Trestle Table

Here is a Mahogany trestle table I finished recently. The table was done entirely by hand except for the cove molding. The base is finished with Osmo oil/wax. The top is finished with candlelight oil stain, sanding sealer, pore filler, three coats of 50/50 polyurethane, three full coats of polyurethane, and finally a French polishing buffing compound.

The joinery consists of drawbored mortise & tenons and through wedged mortise & tenons. All hand cut and chopped. All of the curves and heavy chamfers were made with a spokeshave. A 50° pitch smooth plane left the final surface on all flat areas and the spokeshave for the curved.