A little eye candy

Nancy Laird

Member
Messages
1,417
Location
Rio Rancho, NM
In the interest of getting our attentions back to woodworking, I present the following:

No, we didn't build this. This solid cedar chest was built some time in the 1930s by David's Uncle George (after whom he was named). Uncle George built this in his high school woodshop class in Duluth, as a gift for David's mother as a wedding gift (she married in 1938). David's sister took it after Mom died, and we recently acquired it during our trip to Muskogee, brought it home, and David removed all of the 4-5 coats of hand-applied shellac which had checked and deteriorated over the years (aside from being incredibly filthy), then he applied about four coats of sprayed lacquer.

The chest is built of solid cedar, has brass angle irons at the corners, the lines on the front and top are inlays of some unknown wood (probably white pine), and he hand-chiseled the place for the lock plate. It is absolutely beautiful, a family heirloom, and will be passed down to my granddaughter one of these days.

Just thought you'd like to see this work of art that is now in my bedroom. (Funny bright lines are sun shining across it and the floor. Color difference is from flash and non-flash.)

Miscellaneous 002.jpg

Miscellaneous 005.jpg

Front showing inlays:

Miscellaneous 006.jpg

Miscellaneous 007.jpg

Top showing inlays:

Miscellaneous 008.jpg

Miscellaneous 009_renamed_6079.jpg
 
Real nice Nancy :thumb: David did a great job with the refinish :thumb::thumb: I am sure you are very please to have a family piece like that, Shoot it is almost 80 years old :eek: still in superb condition. Thanks for sharing :thumb::D
 
Wow Nancy, what a treasure! :thumb:

VERY nice, my maternal grand father made a lot of similar chests, also out of cedar, he called them "Hope Chests" and each grand daughter got one, and the idea being that she would fill it with stuff to set up a home when she one day got married.

That is a very nice piece of work, and Kudos to David for bringing it back to it's former glory :clap:

Cheers!
 
That is very cool, Nancy. Great history. Great restoration. Perhaps I could drop by on my way home at the end of May and see it in person! I really like the metal enhancements.
 
That's a beautiful chest. My mom has a cedar chest that's about 45 years old right now. Whenever I can get it from her I can only hope I do half as good a job on refinishing that as David did on this one.
 
Beautiful chest Nancy, I think it is every woodworkers secret desire to have something you made passed on after you are gone. Hope the name and date is inscribed somewhere in the chest so the builder is never forgotten in time.

I don't think the info is on the chest, unless it's on the very bottom and I just haven't seen it. I think I may do something about that--I'll have to guess at the date though, since all of the siblings are gone now, but I know when he was born, so I can narrow it down some.
 
Nancy,

That is just a wonderful looking piece. There is just something kinda historically romantic about having an heirloom in the family. I wish I had something like that past down to me by an ancestor who actually made it with their own hands. *sigh*

Gary
 
Top