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This chest is not really patterned off any particular one. Its
dimensions were mostly determined by the lumber I had.
One of my favorite woods is eastern white pine; it is an
excellent wood for hand tool work. It also has a wonderful scent
that always makes me think of Christmas.
The boards for this
chest I purchased at a local sawmill several years ago. They
were 17 inches wide with some clear lengths in them around 32
inches.
I did all the surface prep by hand. Starting with a jack plane
with a cambered iron I got the worst of the humps and bumps out.
Next I finished flatting with a jointer plane with a slightly
cambered iron.
I hit a place or two with a smoothing plane but
most of the finished surface was done with the jointer (the
underside of the bottom board I only used the jack plane). This
left a slightly undulated surface to the boards that I have seen
in a lot of old furniture.
Once I had one side flat I scribed a line with a marking gage
(about 7/8‘) and flattened the opposite side to the gauge line.
I know this sounds like a lot of work but it went pretty quick,
the wood was clear and fairly even grained.
I did most of this
project over the Thanksgiving holiday and I had about 2 million
extra calories with nowhere else to go too.
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