Fragments of an Unusual Chest

 

"Jonah" Chest 1/4 scale model

Will it float?

walnut "composite" plank router dovetail key for miter joint sawing dovetail keys "Jonah Chest" carcass

Walnut Long-Table, and Framed Print of Job

Below are some views of the walnut long-table as well as a colored print of “Go On, Job, Bread and Water” framed in walnut for my friend.

 

 

 

 

 

Walnut Long Table

The following are a series of photos of the construction of what I have chosen to call a “walnut long table”, featuring a large center cut black walnut slab about 2″ thick from Fall River, KS.   The legs are also black walnut from Boaz, KS.

Butterfly sockets along the seasoning check.

Removing material for a large sliding dovetail and dado for the cross brace.

Sawing the slope inside of the dovetail-dado (dovetail bit in router not deep enough).

Legs.

Fitting the legs.  Lower right is a view of the end of the sliding-dovetail on the brace.

Settled on steel bolts over mating the legs to the brace with another sliding dovetail.

View from the “South” end of the table.

From the “North”.

Three Legged Stool

This is a little three leg stool, turned from black walnut on the pole lathe.  The seat is sawn, not turned, then I used a little gouge on the edges and where the tenons from the legs come through.  The turning is intended to resemble bells and clappers.

Walnut Slab Bench

Pictured below is a walnut slab bench that is meant to accompany the headboard-chest bed, also of black walnut.

A detail of the joinery – bridle joints join the legs to the aprons and are pegged, and the stretchers are joined to the aprons with sliding dovetails.

The Bed

Walnut Bed Update

The chest taken apart and being fitted with a floor and a till.

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Detail of the till.

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The bed to this point, dry fit and testing out some planks for the sides of the legs.

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Walnut Baby Crib

Carving of a dove-messenger on the crib’s headboard.

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Two views of the baby crib in black walnut.

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Walnut Headboard-Chest

The walnut headboard-chest will have a “free-edge” on the top.  The lid will be “floating” within the top of the chest.  So the top edges need to be balanced out and given a certain quality of surface to fit  this application.

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Below, I am cutting along the top edges with a medium sized gouge.

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Below, a detail of the edge.  More adjustments will be needed as the bed progresses.

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Walnut Headboard-Chest

Below are some pictures of the main carcass for the headboard-chest of a black walnut bed underway in the shop right now.  It was dry fit for the first time yesterday.  It was quite a challenge to get the nearly eighty hand-cut dovetails to mate properly.

walnut bed 3 (2)

The tops of the boards are still rough- they will be shaped a little- softened- but mainly left as is.  The lid will “float” inside the top of the chest.

walnut bed 1

A foreshortened side view.  Here one can see all the dovetails- yet to be trimmed- th chest will be taken apart and re-assembled a few times before final assembly, where after the pins and tails will be trimmed flush.

walnut bed detail 1

A detail of a Q.S. white oak butterfly- decoratively and hopefully functionally placed in a knot with a small split.  There are quite a few butterflies throughout the piece for the task of securing splits and abnormalities-  the joys of screwball  Kansas walnut.

Dovetails

The set-up for chopping the dovetails for a large walnut chest, which will be incorporated into a bed I am building.

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Here a joined walnut board is clamped upright  in the vice and to the stretchers for sawing the dovetails.

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Finally, in the act of chopping.

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