small cherry/spalted maple blanket chest/coffee table

allen levine

Member
Messages
12,340
Location
new york city burbs
my daughter signed her first lease for an apartment yesterday, everyone is nervous.
Shes now officially out on her own. Not living here or her brothers house.

she doesn't have anything except a bedroom set, an old cabinet I made her, and her lingerie cabinet.

Her new apartment has little space.

Not sure how long she might live there and so on, so for a coffee table, I decided to make her a small blanket chest, I will line the inside with cedar, but she will use it as a coffee table for now, eventually maybe move it into her bedroom.(her bedroom is large, her living space is tiny.)

Cherry frame, spalted maple panels, whatever spalted maple I have left, wasn't the best in the lot I had purchased years ago, doesn't all look like the little piece I cut off one end.

All lumber is cut to rough size, letting it sit overnight, did not cut the lid piece yet, that's up the road a bit, not sure if she wants breadboard ends, or a routed shaped edge, Ill let her look and decide.

It will have waterlox as initial coat to seal, not sure if Im going to put something over the waterlox.
 

Attachments

  • chest 001.jpg
    chest 001.jpg
    56.4 KB · Views: 60
  • chest 002.jpg
    chest 002.jpg
    44.4 KB · Views: 51
  • chest 003.jpg
    chest 003.jpg
    58.9 KB · Views: 54
  • chest 005.jpg
    chest 005.jpg
    58.5 KB · Views: 61
managed to get around 3.5 hours of shop time today before the knee began to speak.
(picture the old alka seltzer commercial when the stomach was sitting complaining to the person, well, you shouldn't have eaten that whatever)
My knee said, hey, fatso, you wanna back off or should I put you on the couch in front of the TV again for a month or two?
anyway, got all the cherry parts cut to size, glued up all the panels, (need 6, will cut each glue up in half), cut the mortises in the legs, and remembered to put the last coat of poly on the last bowl I made.
moving along, tomorrow is my 36th wedding anniversary, so Im not sure how much time Ill get in, we are going for dinner, wanna feel good, not push the knee.

the third glue up panel is not as spalted, I might have spend a little more time sorting through the pieces to see if I had a little nicer board, but I wont recut anything at this point. For the price its being sold for, they can live with it, so can I.

I will use mortise and tenon joints for the rails going into the legs, but pocket screws for the stiles since they aren't weight bearing, and wont be seen inside after I cover them with cedar.
 

Attachments

  • secondday 001.jpg
    secondday 001.jpg
    56.3 KB · Views: 35
  • secondday 003.jpg
    secondday 003.jpg
    57.6 KB · Views: 32
  • secondday 005.jpg
    secondday 005.jpg
    65 KB · Views: 33
  • secondday 008.jpg
    secondday 008.jpg
    61.2 KB · Views: 32
  • secondday 010.jpg
    secondday 010.jpg
    39.4 KB · Views: 27
got the mortises cleaned up, cut the tenons, got the panels cut almost to size, got them down to 1/2 inch thickness(they will be flat panels, 3/8th thick), got the dados cut partway through most of the pieces to accept the panels, had to stop to clean out dust collector, called it a day.
Heres where Im at, need to do sanding work, fitting, this is just the size of it and how the panels will look.couldnt match up colors great on some panels, wide variety of shading and grain/color on the boards I had left.(could be the wrong side Im showing, some sides blended colorwise better)
 

Attachments

  • day3 001.jpg
    day3 001.jpg
    65.4 KB · Views: 33
Daughter officially out on her own, huh?

Don't be suprised if it takes her a little longer to really be what Adults consider out on her own.

Just a dad hint, keep in close touch with her for a while longer vs. just letting the fly in the breeze,

there is still probably a lot of guidance that can come in handy.


Plus you know she wil ltell every one of her freinds that her dad made this peice of furniture!
 
good day, rained, warm, I used the planer and jointer half the day, don't have to worry about nosy moron neighbor snooping around.
Got 5 hours in there today.
Planed panels down to final width, 3/8th, finished all the dados in the rails and stiles to accept panels,
cut up cherry for the lid/top, (ofcourse, the 5/4 cherry I had didn't have great color, as I had to take one piece of 6/4 and plane down, its got much more color, but that's that.
I also decided to get out maple and cut up and plane/joint enough for a small "kitchen table for two", as my daughter will not fit anything larger than a 24-26 inch square in front of the fridge. I would have put a small counter in there to match the cabs(oak) but her landlord is very strict about making holes in his walls. He wants to be there when the cable guy comes, he doesn't want him making any extra holes.
Im sure if I told him Im leaving the counter he would agree, but in case I have an installation problem, well, better its a free standing small table.
I didn't want to use cherry, so I went into all that maple I have sitting around for years.
I need to have lid top and table top both ready together so I only have to bring the drum sander in once to do them both.
The thing is too heavy and takes up too much floor space for me to leave in shop.

I wont post anymore progress reports, Ill just post a pic when Im finished from here, stop boring everyone.

Im sorry pics aren't better quality, cell phone and my hands were shaking by the time I took them, no more strength.

like I said, cut up and planed and glued half up two tops, did all the router work, and then spend 40 minutes cleaning up dust collector and vacuuming. productive day for me.
 

Attachments

  • glueuptops 001.jpg
    glueuptops 001.jpg
    44.8 KB · Views: 18
  • glueuptops 005.jpg
    glueuptops 005.jpg
    50.8 KB · Views: 20
  • glueuptops 007.jpg
    glueuptops 007.jpg
    35.3 KB · Views: 21
Daughter officially out on her own, huh?

Don't be suprised if it takes her a little longer to really be what Adults consider out on her own.

Just a dad hint, keep in close touch with her for a while longer vs. just letting the fly in the breeze,

there is still probably a lot of guidance that can come in handy.


Plus you know she wil ltell every one of her freinds that her dad made this peice of furniture!


she comes over 3 mornings a week so I see her plenty.
She calls me with anything regarding money, car, legal questions, common sense things, for my opinion, so shes pretty much a daddys girl and Im sure we will see her more often now because shes only 15 minutes away from us.(we offer her free and prepared meals, shes not stupid)
 
Not boring anyone Allen! Thanks for sharing the updates. :)

That spalted maple is going to look great with the cherry. :thumb:
 
John, most of my journey into woodworking was sparked by me being annoyed at something you posted to me 6 years or so ago

I had mentioned how content I was making Adirondack chairs and other assorted outdoor items, and you basically insulted? me, but in a friendly way, saying, how will I ever challenge myself if I don't try anything different. sorta like I conceded that's all I can build.
Look at what you helped create, while I might not be getting much better as far as craftsmanship, Im certainly doing every and any project that crosses my path.
 
the box is done. I still need to sand glue stains off,and start applying finish ofcourse, but I only sanded rails and stiles to 120, so a quick run over them and then probably to 180.
Panels are sanded.
once again the 22/44 helped me out tremendously, although I don't think Id want to use the drum sander to bring any table tops down too much to final dimensions, its a tough process, cherry burns very easily, so light passes, it took me so many passes to get this one down 1/8 of an inch. My back had enough lifting and running it through.
I also ran the tabletop for the small maple kitchen table Im in the process of making. Trying to group some builds together now, I have a long list ahead of me, applying similar finishes at the same time will save me a lot of time.
table top is 26x26, it will fit ok in that tiny kitchen and take 2 chairs.
She was moving in sunday, but the downstairs tenant discovered a leak in her ceiling, seems the previous owner of the home hired some incompetent contractor and every time the new owner(a contractor and his sons) discovers something, it opens up another can of worms.
They are redoing the entire bathroom for my daughter, so she will be delayed a week or two getting in.

I took these pics to send to her, so figured why not post up the box completed before finish.

nothing earth shattering, just a box, but it will be a pretty box when oil applied.
 

Attachments

  • cherrybox 003.jpg
    cherrybox 003.jpg
    52.7 KB · Views: 34
  • cherrybox 005.jpg
    cherrybox 005.jpg
    47.2 KB · Views: 23
John, most of my journey into woodworking was sparked by me being annoyed at something you posted to me 6 years or so ago

I had mentioned how content I was making Adirondack chairs and other assorted outdoor items, and you basically insulted? me, but in a friendly way, saying, how will I ever challenge myself if I don't try anything different. sorta like I conceded that's all I can build.
Look at what you helped create, while I might not be getting much better as far as craftsmanship, Im certainly doing every and any project that crosses my path.

Thanks...........I guess:D The "box" looks great, I really like those panels:thumb:
 
Yeah just a box he says .....

Thats a darn pretty box if you ask me. When you apply finish its going to be gorgeous. :thumb: Way to go beats starting out with second hand goods or dare i say it Ikea stuff.

You may get some arm twisting down the road from her friends wanting some furniture. ;)

Any chance of any of those doors being an opening side to use the space beneath the table top for say magazines or the like?
 
....Any chance of any of those doors being an opening side to use the space beneath the table top for say magazines or the like?
I thought the same thing, Rob but those sides are nicely mortised in. The problem with anything like this is that the top gets filled up with 'stuff' and if you want to store or retrieve anything it needs to get cleaned off, so you can tilt it open. An alternative might be to not hinge the top right now and rig some kind of sliding mechanism where you just slide the top to access the insides without having to tilt it. Something using drawer slides might work. That would be cool.
 
Top