Chestnut project in the dry basement

[C. in Indy]

I had bought some reclaimed short boards of wormy chestnut.  I never thought about this wood much, but after a seller sent me some great chisel-handles made of chestnut, I decided to try it.

There was not much in terms of width so I did a lot of panel-gluing, based on hand-jointed edges:

   


Right now the basement gage is showing about 12% humidity!  Really too much forced-air heating this past week with temps below zero all the time.  So the chestnut had to be re-planed for trueness several times.  I wasn't sure if it was ever going to quit moving, so I told myself that cutting some edge joints would break up cumulative curl-forces along the board edges.  I committed to that decision Saturday morning, and finished the thru-dovetails on Sunday.   By the way, I'm now a big fan of marking my pins by using a backsaw scrape through the partially-completed tails.  I just have to remember to not cut the pin-joints on the scrapes, but right next to them!

Here is a pause in the work until I power-rout some grooves inside the boards.  The pretty chestnut chisels are visible too

   



More, later...

Chris

[jerry s]

I had bought some reclaimed short boards of wormy chestnut.  I never thought about this wood much, but after a seller sent me some great chisel-handles made of chestnut, I decided to try it.

There was not much in terms of width so I did a lot of panel-gluing, based on hand-j

Right now the basement gage is showing about 12% humidity!  Really too much forced-air heating this past week with temps below zero all the time.  So the chestnut had to be re-planed for trueness several times.  I wasn't sure if it was ever going to quit moving, so I told myself that cutting some edge joints would break up cumulative curl-forces along the board edges.  I committed to that decision Saturday morning, and finished the thru-dovetails on Sunday.   By the way, I'm now a big fan of marking my pins by using a backsaw scrape through the partially-completed tails.  I just have to remember to not cut the pin-joints on the scrapes, but right next to them!

Here is a pause in the work until I power-rout some grooves inside the boards.  The pretty chestnut chisels are visible too






More, later...

Chris

chris   the chisel handles look nice did you copy something you already have? good job on the dovetails too.

[C. in Indy]

chris   the chisel handles look nice did you copy something you already have? good job on the dovetails too.

Thanks, Jerry!
    Actually the chisel-handles I bought, from auction seller "kmar225".  Real nice handles with leather rings at the smacking surfaces.
    For this job, after getting inspired to do a lot of stropping (as noted in recent forum topics), I didn't even need a mallet to trim this chestnut joinery.

Chris

[Rick Barton]

Nice!


And yeah, with the sub zero temps we've had this past week my humidity level in the basement got down to 13%. Dry as a bone!

[CStan]

Great stuff... love the workspace too.

[C. in Indy]

Great stuff... love the workspace too.

Thanks!

I did some power routing Wednesday before my wife got home.   Saturday I did rabbeting and tenoning by hand... Several sassafras slats for the back, and a punky chestnut shelf for the middle.    Then I'm stopping to figure out how to use some hinges on the front door, that I already have I believe...

   

   

Chris

[C. in Indy]

With the carcass mostly ready, I thought further about the front lid/door.  It is made of the more stably-oriented chestnut lumber cuts, but I still wanted more insurance and edge protection.    I found some pretty taut old mahogany strips to use.  A couple of strips are inserted into slots and glued for 1/3 of their length, sort of acting like tiny breadboard ends to control warping.  These will of course be better trimmed one the glue has cured.  

Then another lateral piece will protect the most exposed edge of the cover:

   

[C. in Indy]

This is a proof-of-concept.  The excess mahogany sections are planed off the door, and the spare strap-hinges from another project are "fitted"... mostly.  The 2 darn hinges turned out to be drilled different from each other, which led to a blood-pressure spike when I put together a really cockeyed door after sinking the screw holes.   Now recovering from that, will do final tuning on the door edges as well.

I will also plan to turn a custom knob for the front lid, and work a magnet into that.  Coming later!

Chris

   

[Stwood_]

Looking good.

But... normally it is not a good idea to band that door/lid.
Those boards need to expand/contract across the grain. Hopefully you did not glue to far in.

[C. in Indy]

Point well taken!   The side bandings are only glued 1/3 the way.   I also looked up chestnut and found the dimensional shrink factors are more stable than for oak or walnut... pretty fun wood to work with by the way!    In the event this small door ever does give trouble, it would be easy to pull off and fix or replace.

I turned a knob this week and embedded some rare-earth magnets, one in the knob joint, and one in a little stop attached to the top interior of the box.  

The hinges show themselves to be leftovers from the pine armoir I did last year

   

   


This will be for a nephew with a birthday coming up.

Happy woodworking, 
Chris