Woodworker's Journal 1994-18-6, страница 63

The project suggestion file here at the Woodworker's Journal magazine office provides a fount of interesting reading. Requests of late have run the gamut from coffins to cupolas. (We've actually had several requests for coffin plans.) One project that perennially gets votes is a blanket chest. More than a few years have passed since our last blanket chest, but we think you'll agree that this handsome chest was worth the wait.

One look and voull see that our chest has an authentic country colonial design, right down to the old-fashioned snipe hinges. We included a single drawer and detailed the front with traditional pin-wheel and fan carv ings, but you can build yours w ith any number of variations. For example, you can simplify construction by eliminating the drawer.

car\ ings, and paint. You can also add a small tray or a lidded compartment at one end inside the chest, as was commonly done to hold smaller hems. In fact, you can use the basic dimensions and techniques shown here to build just about any \ersion that suits your needs, from a basic six-board chest in honey pine to the fully decorated version you see in the photo.

What You'll Need

We crafted our chest of wide pine boards that had been milled from a stand of very old trees felled by Hurricane Andrew several years back. There's a certain temptation to build reproduction pieces using the same materials as would have been used in an original, and we were fortunate to find boards wide enough to require no edge-gluing. If you

don't have access to w ide slabs of lumber, you can edge-glue your panels from 1x6 dimensional lumber, or sw itch lo a different species of wood. (Note: If you do edge-glue, remember to check the annual rings in the end grain of your stock, and alternate faceup with facedown boards to minimize warping.)

We suggest you have the hardware on hand before you start. (See our Sources list on page 70.) You can substitute common nails and butt hinges for the reproduction nails and snipe hinges we show, but using authentic hardware really turns tills chest into a conversation piece. In colonial days, the local blacksmith could easily have crafted snipe hinges and wrought head nails, which made them cheap and plentiful. The brass pulls, however, probably would have been imported from England at considerably higher prices.

Woodworker s Journal

Novembcr/December 1994 1<1