Tough Customer

[Dodgy Loner]

I was able to get a lot of woodworking done last week, as my wife was visiting her folks in South Carolina for the week. There was quite a bit on my agenda, one of which was building a 6-board chest, using only hand tools. It was very first all-hand-tool furniture piece, and I spent two evenings building it.

I wanted to surprise my wife with it as a replacement for the chest that currently sits at the foot of our bed. That chest is a gorgeous old growth cypress chest, probably from the 1840s or 1850s, but it is HUGE. About 27" tall and 24" deep. It's made of single planks of cypress, each 22" wide. My wife complained for weeks when I fixed it up and brought it in, because it is simply too big for its space. She was right, of course. So I wanted to build something that would fit the space a little better and make my wife happy.

I had some wide white pine that was perfect for the smaller chest – I cut the boards to 17" wide, and they shrank to about 16.5". Building the chest was tremendous fun. One of my most enjoyable projects in recent memory. And I was so excited for my wife to get home and see that I had replaced the monstrosity that she had complained so much about. I was even going to let her pick out the paint for it.

I was at work when she got home, so I texted her to see when she arrived. This is the conversation that ensued:

Me: Are you home yet?

Wife: Just got home. Really? Another chest? Haha.

Me: I know. But do you like it better than the other one? I think it's a better size for that spot.

Wife: I guess so. I was starting to get used to the other one.

Me: Dang. Surprise fail :(

Wife: Haha. It's okay. I will probably like it better painted.

Well, so much for making wifey happy. Here are pictures of the failure:

My shop was a disaster. A beautiful, piney-smelling disaster.



I don't know the exact dimensions of of the chest, but it's in the neighborhood of 24" tall, 16" deep, and 40" long.



You can see that the chest is assembled in a way that seems counterintuitive. The grain of the end boards runs perpendicular to the grain of the front and back, which would seem to be a wood-movement disaster waiting to happen. Yet, these chests exist in good shape that are 200 years old and more. The nails that hold the front and back to the sides will "give" a little with seasonal movement, and there is no glue used to interrupt the movement. The soft white pine will compress against the nails as well. If you tried to build a chest like this using oak, screws and glue, the boards would surely crack within months. Picking the right materials is essential to success. I can't guarantee that the chest won't crack, but if it does, it will still hold my linens. ;D



The batten has a nice detail that I've seen on 17th-century chests.



The hinges are new-old-stock from the 1920s or 1930s. They were made in Sweden, and I like the way they look on this old chest. I had to bend them to make them work, but I've seen several old chest that had modified strap hinges just like this.

[Axe Handle Hound]

Dodgy that is a fine piece of work.  I really like that batten detail and may just have to steal the idea for some of my future work.  I also really like the fact that you kept the joinery simple and used nails.  It looks just like all the old time versions I've ever seen.  Did you put a finish on the chest yet or did your wife see it in the raw?   

How do you handle planing those knots?  I've never had any luck planing white pine with knots even with a good plane sharpened to beyond a razor.  Seems like it always tears out no matter what and the wood is too soft for effective scraping. 

[Jay C. White Cloud]

 :D :D :D
Beautiful chest Dodgy, but the conversation between you and the wife sounded all to familiar.  "Best laid plan of mice and men...."

What you gonna to do for paint?  Nice "crackled" milk paint, or "dye" stain in some bright color?

Again, beautiful work, looks like you've got the "circle stroke" down for those knots.

Regards,

jay

[clww]

Nice work, Dodgy!

[mesquite buckeye]

Very cool. Offer to give it to a relative she's not crazy about. It will instantly become priceless. ;D

[justallan1]

Beautiful work, Dodgy.

[Dodgy Loner]

Did you put a finish on the chest yet or did your wife see it in the raw?   

She saw the box just as it is in the pictures. I wanted her to pick out the colors. I think she is warming up to chest now. I may have just messed up because she had higher priorities as far as what furniture needed to be built, and I may have gone out of order. This was just such a quick build, I couldn't help but do it first! :D

How do you handle planing those knots?  I've never had any luck planing white pine with knots even with a good plane sharpened to beyond a razor.  Seems like it always tears out no matter what and the wood is too soft for effective scraping.

I honestly don't know that I do anything special. Sometimes you have to come in from both sides, so the plane kind of has to land and take right back off to hit the grain right where it's pointed in the right direction. You have to take a light cut when doing this or the entry and exit marks will stick out. Honestly, though, the knots gave me very little trouble with my smoothing plane. You have to have the chipbreaker set very close...but not too close, because then the blade will burnish the wood and you'll start getting a rough surface again. It takes a little trial and error. I didn't worry about a little bit of tearout on the inside of the chest.

[Dodgy Loner]

What you gonna to do for paint?  Nice "crackled" milk paint, or "dye" stain in some bright color?

I love milk paint, and that would be my first preference, but it's not in the cards for this chest. The wood is absolutely soaked with pitch - worse than any yellow pine I've ever seen, short of fat lighter. The water-based milk paint would just bead up on the surface. I'm going to put down a layer of shellac to start, and then make my own shellac-based paint to finish up. I will be flying by the seat of my pants, but hopefully it will come out alright.

[SwampDonkey]

Nice chest Dodgy, well constructed. I like your hand tool work as always. White pine will move very little once it's dried good. I have a wide pine lid on my butternut chest, and it has a 3" lip that fits down over on 3 sides. It has never stuck from shrinkage. Plus the butternut itself is very stable wood. Your lid surely won't seize from shrinkage as your lips are on the ends. I've seen lots of shoe box/benches made in the same way.

I know you commented on the old chest being big, but they needed to be if they were to store blankets. Blankets can be bulky, especially if wool or even heavy quilts and bedspreads. Wouldn't take long to fill a small one. ;)

[Peter Drouin]

Good job

[Magicman]

Good job Justin.  Seat of the pants seems to be a way of life for most of us.  We live, but we never seem to learn.   ;D

[Dodgy Loner]

Nice chest Dodgy, well constructed. I like your hand tool work as always. White pine will move very little once it's dried good. I have a wide pine lid on my butternut chest, and it has a 3" lip that fits down over on 3 sides. It has never stuck from shrinkage. Plus the butternut itself is very stable wood. Your lid surely won't seize from shrinkage as your lips are on the ends. I've seen lots of shoe box/benches made in the same way.

I know you commented on the old chest being big, but they needed to be if they were to store blankets. Blankets can be bulky, especially if wool or even heavy quilts and bedspreads. Wouldn't take long to fill a small one. ;)

Thanks, SD. You're right about white pine being a pretty stable wood - I do think that contributes a lot to the success of the design. I really wasn't complaining about the size of the old chest - it would have been a shame to cut those 22"-wide cypress boards narrower. We just live in a small house and we don't have a good spot for it! But that's a small complaint. I love the chest and I never want to get rid of it

[SwampDonkey]

Don't worry about the size of the house. I live is a big old farm house here and there still isn't enough room for all this loot around me here. :D :D ;)

When my uncle saw my blanket chest for the first time he said "that's awfully big". To some it looks big to others it's not big enough. :D

[jueston]

Don't worry about the size of the house. I live is a big old farm house here and there still isn't enough room for all this loot around me here. :D :D ;)

I think no matter how much space we have, we seem to find things to fill it... when I moved from my last house to this one, I thought "with this unfinished basement to make into my woodshop I will have lots of space and don't have to work in the cramped garage" well now the garage is still full of junk and the basement is full of tools and piles of wood.... I guess I need to buy a bigger house again....

[POSTON WIDEHEAD]

I want one. 

[Clark]

Very nice work! I like the simplicity and classic design, very well done.

I find myself moving towards hand tools more and more also.  There's something to making mistakes slower that appeals to me!  I was wondering what you used for the round-over and step on the edges?  It doesn't seem like a molding plane would do that but my knowledge of molding planes is very minimal.

Clark

[Busy Beaver Lumber]

Dodgy

You wife is absolutely right. There is absolutely no place in the house for that darn chest and I can't imagine what you were thinking when you decided to make it. Obviously you had taken temporary leave of your senses. You should redeem yourself and send it to me immediately just to free up more space in the house and make the wife happy. smiley_hair_gal

I will find a very nice place for a fine crafted chest like that. Beautiful work!

[Dodgy Loner]

I think I'm making some headway with my wife on this chest.

A couple of nights ago, I started fooling around with some various mixtures of Zinsser "Amber" Shellac, Zinsser BIN shellac-based primer, and some random pigments - which included various copper salts that I've had lying around ever since I was taking chemistry in college, and some homemade lampblack.

I made some test runs, and my wife really like the one on the left. I really didn't do any measuring, I just added random ingredients until it looked right, but it consisted of about 2 parts Zinsser BIN Primer, 1 part Zinsser Amber shellac, and one part denatured alcohol. To that, I added copper carbonate hydroxide (malachite), copper acetate, and lampblack until I got the shade I wanted.



So I started off the finishing process by sealing the entire chest (except the interior) with a coat of full-strength Zinnser "Amber" Shellac. It darkened the wood considerably, turned out really blotchy, and highlighted every little patch of tearout. Fortunately, I didn't care about the looks, I just wanted a good barrier between the pitchy wood and my first coat of "paint".



I let that dry overnight, and then last night began the real test of my homemade "paint". I mixed up something that came close to the sample that my wife liked, and started slapping it on. It was a very odd consistency - I would describe it as cottage cheese-like, but grainy instead of lumpy. I had to brush it back and forth a lot to get it to spread evenly. I think the copper acetate messed with the consistency, but I'm really not sure.

The oddest thing was the color change. In the container, it was a rich aqua-green. As soon as I brushed it on, it turned a pure medium blue. Then after it dried for a few minutes, it was light blue. The lampblack and copper hydroxide didn't mix completely, so there were little clumps that would spread out and show up as dark and light color variations as I spread the paint. I really like the effect. It dried to a very chalky finish, almost like milk paint. Here is the chest after one coat:






When the first coat was dry, I sanded it lightly, and coated it with a 1:1 mix of amber shellac and denatured alcohol. It really made the color pop and looked fantastic. I mixed up another batch of paint and gave it another coat, then one last sanding. I topped it off with two coats of 1:2 amber shellac to denatured alcohol. Looks really spectacular, but it was too dark in my shop this morning to get a decent picture. I will have to take one tonight.

[Magicman]

I am anxious to see the final pictures.   ;D

[RynSmith]

Dodgy, you probably know this, but I've been told that breathing malachite dust isn't a good thing.  This was in regards to jewelers so I would guess that long-term exposure is the big problem, but still...

[Dodgy Loner]

Thanks, Ryn. I know that malachite is slightly toxic, and I thinks it's bad news to breath any copper dusts. I wore a ventilator during sanding, just in case.

Magicman, here is the finished product. I am happy with it and so it the wife

[Axe Handle Hound]

If your goal was to make an authentic period-looking piece of furniture you sure nailed it.  If it were only beat up a bit more I'd have guessed that piece to be 150 years old.  I like the way you used all flat head screws instead of Phillips.  Nice touch.

[Magicman]

   Now that is nice.  I'll bet that it won't take that Tough Customer long to get attached to that piece.   

[SwampDonkey]

Locally, I've seen a few modern pieces with a finish very similar to your color. It gives it an antique look. One shop I'm thinking of, a family member of the owner runs a cabinet shop and I think the pieces he made.  I have no clue on how well it sells.

[Lud]

Real nice looking chest........and the paint job is fine for the long term.

One question.....any concern for pinch points on fingers if the lid drops?  Aren't there some soft closers to eliminate that risk?

Again,   real nice........