From the Woodshop: Finishing The Blanket Chest

Well its been almost two months since my last post but I haven't been totally lazy. I spent a week at MASW and finished a small table and have a good start on another much larger one but that's a whole other post. When I last posted I had all the the parts milled for two chest's and panels done for one. I decided to just get one finished and do the second when I was sure what I wanted to do for the panels on the second. So with that decision made it was just a matter of putting it together and to put a finish on it. I thought I would try something I have never done before and finish all the parts before I glued up the project. I am becoming more of a fan of shellac as time goes on because of the tones it brings out in the wood and the fact that it can be easily be repaired if it is damaged. Everything was glued-up and put together after several coats of shellac. I used garnet for the first coat and then all the other were added using blond shellac. After the frame of the box was done I added some 1"x 1" stips to the bottom styles as supports for the plywood bottom.

I used a piece of wood as a story stick to make sure all the supports would be the same distance from the top of the legs. A couple of clamps to hold them in place and just screw them, no measuring involved. Simple and easy.

I was going to use solid cherry for the bottom but was a little worried about expansion so I was I was going to have to use ship lap joints.I wasn't sure how it was going to turn out so I thought I might just as well use plywood and cover it with cedar.

You can see in the pic the plywood base for the red cedar closet lining that I bought at Lowes. Its tongue and grove so it was just a matter of cutting the pieces to fit the plywood leaving a little space between pieces for expansion and contraction. I did run a small line of glue down the middle of each pc.and brad nailed them to the plywood to help hold them down.

After the bottom was put in I attached the top using a brass piano hing with intentions of adding a couple lid supports, but because I added wood to the top back style to beef it up for the hing, the supports I bought wouldn't fit. I'm still trying to find a set that will work.