I have begun the carving on the main front panel of a cherry and walnut hope chest. This carving is in cherry and features a shallow relief of a stylised tree.
Below is a gratuitous workshop picture with a goofy three-legged stool I turned out this week. The carved panel is held to the bench with hold-fasts.
Here are a few photographs of the three drawers in the cherry and walnut hope chest currently in the shop. The faces on the drawers are walnut, while the secondary wood is white oak.
Below is a group of photos of some details of the construction of the black walnut drawer carcass and the drawer fronts for the cherry and walnut hope chest. Please click on any of the pictures to view larger.
The lower web/ frame for the bottom of the drawer unit, it is constructed of white oak with the front (visible) rail being walnut.
The drawer case with the web installed with tongue and groove
The main chest rests upon the drawer case
Flattening walnut drawer fronts with a jointer
A forged bench hook (I learned from Peter Follansbee)
The flattened and drawer fronts ready to be marked and cut to length
The drawer fronts wedged in their spots to see how they look. Also the dividers have been installed with stopped dovetails.
Milled a large Green Ash, Fraxinus pennsylvanica, log last week, which was recovered near Fall River, Kansas a little over a year ago.
Five 2.5″ slabs and two 1.25″.
Me holding one of the boards. The grain, although hard to see in the pictures is very nice.
Below are a few pictures of the frame and panel lid for the cherry and walnut hope chest.
A section of the cherry frame with a piece of walnut as a test panel.
The lid, dry fit with the panels installed.
A detail showing the hard maple ogee molding – all dry fit and held with gravity and friction at this stage.
Over the past week, the white oak panels for the painting cabinet were gessoed using a traditional cooked recipe of rabbit skin glue, and ground calcium carbonate.
The panels dry fitted in the doors.
The panels with the masking removed.
Gessoing the panels.
The thickness of about 12 coats of gesso.
A dovetailed painting cabinet in quarter-sawn white oak. The tree grew along the Van Horn Branch just south of Boaz, Kansas, until it’s bank gave way. The panels will be gessoed and receive an oil painting. The cabinet is only dry fitted. It will not be glued up until the panels are fully prepared. In order to eliminate the center stiles of the frame and panel doors, the inside inch and 1/2 is a full tenon into the rail, while the rest of the panel will float in the customary grooves.
Pictured below is the beginings of a hope chest in cherry and walnut, primarily. The pictures depict the joinery of the upper case of the chest, which is cherry, and will lit atop a narrower walnut case with a row of drawers.
Here the dovetails have been cut and the piece is clamped together in order to mark precisely the corresponding pins.
cutting the pins with a dovetail saw…
cutting out the majority of the waste with a coping saw…
chopping out the rest of the waste with a paring chisel…
the board with pins cut out on both ends…
the case dry fitted.
Pictured is a recently completed stool made from red oak and black walnut, harvested from Boaz, near Fall River.
Here is an osage orange, or hedge bowl. It developed a small crack in the sapwood during drying.
Another osage bowl in various stages on the lathe.
The School of the Transfer of Energy 