Inspired by traditional Pennsylvania design, this chest is a dovetailers delight.
Ill bet that theres a blanket chest somewhere on your honey-do list. Its a useful piece that looks great in almost any room. And its also the perfect project to develop-or test-your dovetailing skills.
Dovetail-friendly wood. This chest is made from butternut, a relatively soft wood thats perfect for cutting dovetails by hand.
The right wood can make all of the difference when dovetailing is done correctly. If you use a dense wood that splinters easily or has squirrely grain-watch out! So let me share with you just one magical word: butternut. This wood is the ultimate dream for dovetailers.
Built-in till. Built-in till. Simply open the till to prop the chest’s lid.
Butternut is similar to basswood in that it is relatively soft. It takes little effort to saw and easily surrenders paper-thin shavings to a sharp chisel. Because butternut’s end grain contrasts strongly with its face grain, your dovetails will stand out in the finished wood. Butternut is a beautiful wood with a similar shape to walnut.
Ends of breadboard. These pieces keep the chests lid from warping. These pieces were made from red oak for their strength.
Although the majority of the chest is made out of butternut, the lids and breadboard ends as well as the cove molding around the base were made from red oak. These parts will probably get dinged over the years, so I chose a wood that is more durable than butternut. Although it may sound strange to combine woods in this way, cabinetmakers used the same technique long ago, especially for chests that were being painted. Although I would not paint this chest, I like the result. It is striking and honors the practicality of craftsmen.
Dovetail Case
1. Start by attaching large panels to the sides, front and back of the chest. Use a crosscut saw to trim them to the desired length.
You will need to glue the 41 cm wide sides (C), front (A), and back (B) of the chest together. I used two wide boards for the front and sides and a number of narrower boards for the back. Make sure you glue all the pieces together evenly and that everything is flat. The panels should be cut to the final width. After that, trim them using a crosscut saw ( Photo 2 ).
2. Use a template to lay out the dovetails. I made this one from aluminum flashing. You can make the lines more detailed by scoring them with a knife.
Place the dovetails (Fig. C). I start with the tails (they go on the front and back pieces). With so many tails to lay out, I make a template from aluminum flashing (Photo 2). First, I mark the base of the tails on the wood using a marking gauge. Then I place the template in position and use a knife to score lines for the sides of the tails. Finally, I remove the template and score the baseline and the side lines even deeper.
3. Cutting dovetails requires many careful steps; you can find out more about how I do it on the AW website. Here, I use a jewelers saw to remove most of the waste between the tails.
I cut the tails to the line, saw most of the waste between them with a jewelers saw (Photo 3), then pare the baseline from both sides. I lay out the pins directly from the tails, again using a marking knife. I cut the pins a little fat, then undercut them a bit and chamfer their inside edges-to make assembly easier-and pare to the lines.
Use The Bottom And Till
4. Make the parts for the till before assembling the chest. This dowel pivots onto the till lid.
You are not yet ready to glue together the case after all that dovetailing. First, make the necessary parts for the bottom (H) and the till (D-G). As you assemble the case, these pieces will be inside.
5. Rout grooves into the front and back panels to hold the till. This router template can also be used to locate the hole for the dowel inside the till lid.
The housings that fit the front (E) or bottom (F) of each till are inserted into the back and front of the case (Fig. B). D. The tills lid pivots on a dowel. (G, Foto 4). Make a template to rout the housings and to drill the dowel holes in the front and back pieces (Fig. F). (The easiest way to make this template is to glue separate pieces together, as shown in the drawing.) Use a 5/20 cm opening when routing the housings ( Foto 5). Housings will be 5/41cm wide if you use a guide bushing and a 1/10cm bit. Cut the tills’ bottom and front pieces. To fit the housings, cut tenons at their ends (Fig. E). The lid should be made. Drill dowel holes in its ends and insert the dowels. This piece will move freely if its back edge is rounded. To ensure that you don’t have any problems when glueing the case together ( Photo 6 ), test fit each of the three pieces.
6. Cut tenons on the ends of the tills front and bottom pieces. Make sure they fit in the grooves you routed. When you glue the case together, all of these parts must slide in place, as well as the bottom of your chest.
Saw or rout a groove on the bottom edge of all four sides of the chest (Fig. C). When you assemble the chest, the ends of these grooves will be visible on the side pieces; thats OK, because they will be covered by the cove molding (N) that runs all the way around the chest. You will glue the bottom of your chests using a variety of yellow poplar pieces. Rip it 1/10 cm narrower than the distance between the bottom of the grooves in the front and back pieces (to allow for expansion and contraction). It should be cut 1/41 cm shorter that the space between the bottom of your side grooves to allow it to slide in. Test the fit by cutting a 1/10 inch tongue around the bottom.
New Hope Blanket Chest List
Overall dimensions: 56 cm Hx97 cm Wx19-
Notes:
a) Includes two 1/10 cm tenons.
b) Width is slightly oversize. Plane to fit.
c The bottom width is 1/10cm narrower than that between the grooves at the chest’s front and back.
d Two 3/10 cm Tenons are included.
Fig. A) Side View
Fig. B) Exploded View
Fig. C) Base Detail and Dovetail Layout
Fig. D) Cross Section of Lid
Fig. E) End View of Till
Fig. F) Till Housing Jig (see photo 5)
Glue The Case
7. All of the cases should be glued together at once. This can be time-consuming due to the many dovetails involved. Use a slow-setting liquid hide glue to give yourself plenty of time.
A lot has to happen all at once when you assemble the case, so youll need plenty of time before the glue sets up.
A liquid hide glue has an open time approximately 1 hour. Apply glue to the back panel dovetails and rear pins on the side panels. These three pieces should be assembled. Drive the joints together to form a U. Photo 7 ).
Next, slip the bottom panel into place. Next, attach the bottom panel to the till. Apply glue to the front pins of the side panels and the tails of the front panel. Put the front panel in position and gradually tap it into place; youll have to line up the till pieces at the same time.
8. Plane the joints flush. For cutting end grain without chatter, I use a low-angle jack plane.
After the glue has dried overnight, you can soften it with warm water. Then, use a putty knife to remove the glue. Plane all of the joints even (Photo 8). Plane all around the top and bottom edges to even them up as well.
Attach Base
9. Cut the front of the base on the bandsaw. The sides and back of the base are just straight boards. All of these pieces should be glued together by gluing them together. Two horizontal stretchers should be glued to the base.
Mill the bases front (J), back (K) and sides (L). Make their dovetails as shown in Fig. C) and saw the cutout for the front piece. The cutout should be started by drilling large holes at each end. Next, use the bandsaw to saw the rest ( Photo 9 ). Then glue the pieces together, and smoothen the joints.
10. Fasten the base to the bottom of the chest. Make sure to drill holes that are too large in the stretchers so that the bottom can expand and contract as needed.
Two stretchers (M), glue inside the base. Drill oversized holes near the end of each stretcher, then fasten the base to the case with screws and washers (Photo 10).
11. Attach a cove molding around the chest with glue. Shoot the nails into the base pieces.
On two sides of a board at least 8cm in width, route the cove molding (N). It is not square. The molding is 3/10 cm high and 5/20 cm in depth from front to back. Sand the molding, then rip both sides of the board to make the final pieces. The molding should be cut to length. Attach it to the base using glue and 3 cm pin nails ( Foto 11 ).
Make The Lid
12. Make the chests lid. Plow grooves down the full length of the breadboard ends. These chests are mainly made from butternut but I also make them from red oak for strength.
The breadboard ends (Q), and the main panel (P) of the lid should be milled to the exact same thickness. Glue the panel. Rip it 1/10 cm extra-wide, but trim it to final length. Trim the ends of the breadboard to reach their final width.
13. Use a dado tool to cut tenons in the main section. Start out making the tenons a little fat, then raise the blade until they almost fit the breadboard ends. To fine-tune the fit, use a shoulder or rabbet plan.
Cut the grooves for the breadboard ends (Fig. D) with a tablesaw. I use a 1/20 cm blade to ensure the grooves are perfectly centered. The dado set ( Photo 13) is used to cut the tenons at the ends of main panel. To make sure they fit perfectly, I trim them to a hair less.
14. Glue the breadboard ends onto the main panel of the lids. The glue should only be applied halfway along the joint so that the panel can move later.
Glue the breadboard ends of the panel to it ( Photo 14). To ensure the panel doesn’t crack when it expands and contracts, glue should only be applied to the front of the joint. To get the final width, take a small amount of glue off both sides. Use a damp cloth to soften the edges of the lid.
15. Install the hinges. Start out with only one screw per hinge, then close the lid and see if the overhang is even all around. Adjust as necessary, then put in all the screws.
To fasten the lid, I use forged hinges that have a hand-made look. Cut mortises for the hinges and screw the hinges into the mortises. Center the lid on your bench upside-down, and then place the chest on top of the lid (Fig. A). Place the hinges at the ends of each hinge by rolling the chest on its side ( Photo 15). Stand the chest up on its base and readjust the position of the lid, if necessary. Once the lids overhang is even all around, install the remaining screws. Finally, install the hasp (it doesnt require a mortise) and nail its eye to the front of the chest.
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