# Alternative Methods - Jewelry Chest



## Longknife (Oct 25, 2010)

Ok, so I finally came around to start this project (I've been busy reading Kenbo's tutorials :laughing

This is what I will try to accomplish (I belive frankp called it #3)









I found some rowanwood slabs I thought would be nice for this project









In old times rowan was belived to have magic properties, it was common when making tools or appliances to make at least some part of it from rowan to give it luck.

Enough of history, time to get to work. My first modification of the plan was to convert the dimensions to metric units. I rounded off the figures so my chest will be 40 cm tall, 20 cm wide and 15 cm deep.

I cut off a 90 cm piece to give me two 40 cm pieces and some play.

I used my sliding table to saw a straight edge on the board. Then I used the TS fence to rip it to 21 cm width.









When checking the board with winding sticks I noticed it was a bit warped. If I would joint that board I would lose a lot of material so i cut it in two 45 cm pieces.


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## Longknife (Oct 25, 2010)

These push pads are made from plastic masonry tools.









On one I glued sand paper and on the other added a heel.









Hera are the boards jointed, edge jointed and planed to 34 mm thickness.









Next step is to resaw these to four 17 mm boards. I set up my bandsaw for resawing.........









The boards are then planed to 15 mm thickness, except for one which I plane down to 12 mm - why I'll come back to later.


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## Longknife (Oct 25, 2010)

I checked my cross-cut fence for square









Then I cut the pices to length. From the three 15 mm boards I cut two 40 cm pieces and two 19 cm pieces. From the 12 mm board I cut two 18 cm pieces.









When that was accomplished I set up my shaper to cut the rabbets at the ends of the side pieces.

My next modification of the plan was to cut a rabbet for the back as well. The plan advocated a groove to insert the back but I found that unnessesarely awkward. I will use 7 mm plywood for the back so I made the rabbet 7.5 mm deep.









Here are the pieces for the box with the rabbets made.









A dry fit showed no errors so far.









Thats it for today, will come back with installing the shelves.


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## johnnie52 (Feb 16, 2009)

Looking real nice.

This is going to be a good one to watch. I've already seen a few differences just in the machines compared to the same machine in the US.:thumbsup:


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## Kenbo (Sep 16, 2008)

Very nice so far. It looks great. The only problem is that I didn't get these plans and I agreed to do all of the projects. Looks like I'll have to contact Frank and get the plans for this one. Looking forward to following this one.


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## johnnie52 (Feb 16, 2009)

Ken

If you followed the links in the original Alternative Methods post in the general area, the first jewelry box that comes up is the one he's making. You had to click through about 3 or 4 options to get to the ones we built and that Frank finally posted the picture and supplied the plans to built.

Longknife

don't let the difference in plans stop you.. keep building and posting. I'd love to watch your work.


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## lawrence (Nov 14, 2009)

that is some awsome looking wood...looking foward to this for sure


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## frankp (Oct 29, 2007)

Excellent start, Longknife. Looking forward to seeing the rest of the build progress.


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## Longknife (Oct 25, 2010)

Next step is to cut the dadoes for the shelves. The method I use for this is to do it with the router and a simple jig.









The reason for me to plane the shelf blank to 12 mm is that I can use a 12 mm bit and make the dado in one cut.

I sanded all the inside faces to 240, assembled, glued up and checked for square.









Next I cut the back from 7 mm plywood and glued it into the rabbet. Then I sanded down the extra 0.5 mm from the sides to get the back flush with the sides.

I have decided to have a BLO finish on this project. Before I put the back on I applied finish to the inside surfaces of the box. Reason is that there will be a self-adhesive velvet applied to the back and I'm afraid that an oily finish on the back might prevent the velvet from sticking


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## Longknife (Oct 25, 2010)

My next task is to make the door and this called for some thinking. The door is of a somewhat unusual construction. It's a kind of raised panel door but the rails and stiles are standing on edge instead of lying flat as normal. The reason is to make some storage space inside the door.

The door panel will be quite thin and to reduce the risk for it to cup and minimize wood movement it would best be made of quartersawn lumber. The rowan I used for the box was flatsawn so I had to find some other wood for the door panel. I considered birch which would give a nice contrast to the darker rowan but on the other hand it has a rather dull grain. I decided to make it from goat willow which has a nicer grain and still will contrast to the box. I glued the panel from three pieces I resawed from a block.










I tried to match the grain as good as possible.....









.... and glued them up.









I planed the panel to 10 mm









Well, thats it for today. Will be back soon.


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## johnnie52 (Feb 16, 2009)

Nice job on the panel glue up. The grain looks a little like a fountain with water spraying up and away from the center... I like it.


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## frankp (Oct 29, 2007)

Looking great, Longknife. I just got a bounced email from you for "Inbox too full" or something like that, so if you still want the "official" plans, let me know and I'll try again.


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## Longknife (Oct 25, 2010)

frankp said:


> Looking great, Longknife. I just got a bounced email from you for "Inbox too full" or something like that, so if you still want the "official" plans, let me know and I'll try again.


No worries, I found the plans on the Internet :thumbsup:

Now, back to work. I milled, jointed, planed and cut the pices for the rails and stiles. Next I set up the shaper to cut the rabbet on the ends of the stiles. I used a scrap piece as backer to prevent tearout.









Then I routed a 6 mm groove for the panel









Here are all the rails and stiles finished









I also routed a recess in the right stile which will act as a grip for the door. I used a cove bit and since it is a stopped cove I attached stop blocks on the router table fence.









Routing a stopped cove easily result in this.....


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## Longknife (Oct 25, 2010)

To prevent that I flipped the stile on edge and routed from the other direction......









.... and achived this result.









That router screams something terribly so these are a necessity. Good thing there is a radio in them as well :yes:









Now I have all the parts foor the door ready. I made the rabbet around the panel on the shaper.









All the parts glued and clamped with a "few" clamps. I used a square block to ensure everything is perfectly square. I didn't apply any glue on the panel so it sits loose in the groove to allow possible wood movement.


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## Longknife (Oct 25, 2010)

Glue has cured and the door is done.









I made the blanks for the top and bottom. I will rout a cove on them later.









Next to do is the drawers. I decided to make them from birch so I set up the bandsaw for resawing again.....









.... and ended up with a nice little stack of boards. 









They will be jointed and planed but that will happen an other day.

Pheew, all this picture handling and documentation takes up more time than the actual woodwork :laughing: Thanks for watching this time.


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## johnnie52 (Feb 16, 2009)

> Pheew, all this picture handling and documentation takes up more time than the actual woodwork :laughing: Thanks for watching this time.


Ain't it the truth! I think that is why the pro's all have people to take the pictures for them....

Another outstanding post though.. keep it up.


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## Kenbo (Sep 16, 2008)

I'm enjoying this one as well. Great work for sure.


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## Longknife (Oct 25, 2010)

*Murphy hit me yesterday!*

When I was moving around some stuff on my workbench I managed to knock down the door from the bench. Of course it landed on the floor on one of the corners and there was a quite big nick on the corner. A lot of :furious: and  came out of my mouth. (there are quite a few to choose from in swedish :laughing. I was so upset I didn't think of documenting the damage but I'll try to describe what I did.

My first reaction was to throw it away and start over again, but when I calmed down I started to think about other options.
One would be to saw off a stripe from the rails and stiles but that would interfere with the storage space inside the door. Good thing was that there was no piece missing, the wood was just pressed in. I know that compressed fibers sometimes can be released with steam - might be worth a try. I sneaked into the laundry room and borrowed the iron and a towel. I dampened the towel and put it on the damage and when the iron was hot I pressed it on the towel.













It seemed to work and I repeated the process several times. When it was dry I sanded down the raised fibers and the result was this.
The damage isn't totally gone but it isn't worse than I can live with it.


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## Kenbo (Sep 16, 2008)

Nice save for sure. This project is looking great. Love your shop.


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## johnnie52 (Feb 16, 2009)

I hope you managed to sneak that iron back into the laundry room without getting caught. Around here using the iron on wood is VERBOTEN! :laughing:

Great save though. I like your shop also, but then I like anyone's shop that actually is a shop.... unlike the outdoor platform I have to use..


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## RetiredLE (Jan 20, 2011)

Longknife said:


> It seemed to work and I repeated the process several times. When it was dry I sanded down the raised fibers and the result was this.
> The damage isn't totally gone but it isn't worse than I can live with it.
> 
> You could cut off a small section all around the inner face of the door - which would of course make the door a bit thinner.......


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## Longknife (Oct 25, 2010)

RetiredLE said:


> You could cut off a small section all around the inner face of the door - which would of course make the door a bit thinner.......


One of my first thoughts but I didn't want the door to be thinner.


Now where was I? Drawers I think. The drawers doesn't involve any complex joinery - all end rabbet joints. I planed and cut the drawer blanks to size. When making drawers it's important that the pieces are square so I checked them all. If they are out of square the drawer will be twisted.









I cut the rabbets on the shaper, as well as the rabbet for the drawer bottom. Then I glued and clamped up, using a sqare block and checking all corners for square.









The drawers installed. They fit nicely, not too loose, not too tight.
















Next thing to do was the ring bar holder. I cut the pieces and instead of assembling them on the workbench as suggested in the plan I clued and clamped them inside the chest. In this way it's easier to get it square and achive a snug fit.


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## Longknife (Oct 25, 2010)

I messed up on the dimension of the upper part so instead of the intended chamfer I had to cut a V-groove. Turned out to work just as well.









Then I routed the profiles on the top and the bottom. I made it an ogee instead of the cove in the plan. The rowan is quite hard so I made it in three passes to avoid burn marks.









Next I cut a blank, 12 mm thick and 50 mm wide and 25 cm long for the feet. The feet have a combination of cove and chamfer profiles. They will be small and a bit difficult to rout safely so I did as much as possible on the blank before I cut the pieces. I routed a cove on three sides and a chamfer on one side. Then I only had to cut a chamfer on two of the small pieces.









Then I cut and installed the plywood bottom in the ring bar holder and made a dry fit of all pieces.
















My next problem is the fittings of the inside. The plan calls for self-adhesive velvet. I asked my wife about that but she had never heard of anything such, niether had my daughter who is much in that kind of things. The ring bar is an other problem, the plan says "cut and install the ring bar" so obviously this is a stor bought item.
I searched the Internet and the only place I found anything was Rockler. Velvet for $14 and ring bar for $24 and maybe as much for shipping across the Atlantic. Well, that won't happen so I'll have to think about something else. Johnnie52 kindly offered me instructions on how to make a ring bar so I'll check that out. I'll have to put the chest on the shelf for a while anyway as I need to pick up some hardware too. Next time I go to town I'll do that and then do some velvet shopping. Will be a new experience.
I'll be back when I have solutions for that and when I start with the finish. Thanks for watching so far.


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## johnnie52 (Feb 16, 2009)

I really like the way this is looking. Think I may build one to give to a grand daughter. 

The directions I sent you are for a ring holder, not just a bar, but a series of places to stick rings into....It goes inside a drawer or a tray. Hopefully it will work for you better than it did for me.


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## Kenbo (Sep 16, 2008)

Wow, that looks gorgeous. I love the wood choice. I knew from the start that it was going to look great, but I didn't know that it was going to look THAT great. Awesome work.


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## woodnthings (Jan 24, 2009)

*ring holder*

You can use the split foam insulation and wrap the cloth down side the foam or leave as is if it's nice enough. The pressure from the foam trying to close will hold the rings in place. Nope, I've never tried it but I think it would work based on using the insulation for pipes. It come in 1/2", 3/4" and maybe 1" for large Diamonds....:laughing: bill
http://www.metrosupplycollc.com/Polyethylene_Insulation.html


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## Longknife (Oct 25, 2010)

woodnthings said:


> You can use the split foam insulation and wrap the cloth down side the foam or leave as is if it's nice enough. The pressure from the foam trying to close will hold the rings in place. Nope, I've never tried it but I think it would work based on using the insulation for pipes. It come in 1/2", 3/4" and maybe 1" for large Diamonds....:laughing: bill
> http://www.metrosupplycollc.com/Polyethylene_Insulation.html


Now that's one of the best free advices I ever had! And I have the stuff I need right in front of me. Not pipe insulation but foam used to insulate and bottom out wide gaps before caulking. Perfect size too. Combined with Johnnie's instructions this will do the trick.
Thanks again, Bill.


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## Longknife (Oct 25, 2010)

Time to close up on this project. Bill's great idea turned out to be great in theory but not in practice - more on that later.

As I mentioned I decided to have a BLO finish on the chest. Normally you thin the BLO with white spirit or turpentine. The disadvantage with that is that they have a quite nasty smell. Normally not a problem as they evaporate over time but in a confined space, like inside a cabinet or chest, the odour remaines. To avoid that I thinned the BLO with lamp oil, a pure product which is almost odourless.

I applied the oil until the wood didn't absorb anymore, waited a while and then wiped off the excess. After 24 hrs I applied an other coat and in the wet oil I wetsanded the pieces with P600 grit wetsandpaper and then wiped off the excess oil. I will let this cure for a week or so, apply a third coat, cure that for a week and then buff it.









Next thing to do was the hinge mortises. I cut them with a 10 mm chisel, which need to be scary sharp for this job. The depth of the mortises is critical for the fit of the door, so this required a bit of trial and error. It's easier to correct a too shallow mortise than a too deep.









I clamped the door in open position to the carcass before mounting the hinges. To get the door perfectly aligned I shimmed with paper.

A tip when using brass screws is to first install the hinges with iron screws. I had to remount the hinges a couple of times before I got the mortises right and the brass screws are very brittle and snap off easily (especially these tiny ones). When you make the final fit you install the brass screws.










I didn't mention it when I built the door but I cut the stiles a hair shorter than the length of the carcass sides so the door can open without touching the top and bottom plates.


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## Longknife (Oct 25, 2010)

I went to town and visited a sewing acessories store and talked to a very nice lady. I ended up with a roll of thin green felt for the lining. I glued the felt to the back of the door and the inside back of the carcass. I discovered that working with felt in a dusty woodshop is no good idea, it picks up dust very easy and it's a PITA to get off so I did this job on the kitchen table.

I then moved on to the ring holder. The good idea with the foam tubes turned out to be a FAIL. The foam didn't take glue. I tried everything - wood glue, CA, epoxy, contact cement - nothing would stick.

Next idea was to wrap the tubes with felt before gluing them to the holder. I made a cut to the center of the tube with a utility knife....









.... cut out a piece of felt and pressed it into the cut ...









... wrapped it around the tube and pressed in the other end. Then I applied fabric glue in the joint.









Then I glued the tubes on the holder


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## Longknife (Oct 25, 2010)

Next to do was the brass bars on the inside of the door. I didn't have any and no source for them either. I did have a brass bar from an old threshold so I scraped on it and found out it was solid brass (these things tend to be plated these days). I hacked off a 20 cm pice and from that I cut two 8 mm wide stripes. 









I buffed the stripes, made a fold on the ends, bent them in place (I made them slightly longer than required) and epoxied them inside the door. This is a deviation from the plan where there are mounting blocks for the bars.









Another deviation is the magnetic lock. I simply drilled a 10 mm hole in the carcass edge and epoxied a rare-earth magnet in the hole.









For catch I screwed a screw in a countersunk hole in the door stile edge. The rare-earth magnets are so strong that this is quite enough.


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## Kenbo (Sep 16, 2008)

This is looking great!! I'll be starting mine today now that the other projects are done. I like the way you cut your door a little shorter and your tip for installing brass screws is one that i will be using. I don't know how many unreatable words I have used in the shop because a brass screw twisted off when I was installing it. Thanks for sharing the work so far. Again, it looks awesome.


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## Longknife (Oct 25, 2010)

And some pics of the completed chest. I belive this will be a nice christmas gift for one of my granddaughters, a 9 year old princess.
















You learn something from every project you do, and from this I learned one thing - read the plan. I normally see the plan as an inspiration and a general idea of the project. The idea of the challenge also was to do things in our own way. However, in this plan it was said that the door stiles should be cut from the same pieces as the carcass sides. The purpose was to match the grain on these parts. I overlooked that and I see now that I should have done it that way. When I applied the finish a bit of sapwood was clearly visible on the carcass side and disturbed the look.









Finally, here is my tools list:

Table saw with sliding table
Band saw
Shaper with rabbet knifes
Jointer and planer (combined)
Router, handheld with 12 mm straight bit
Dado jig
Routertable with 6 mm straight, chamfer and cove bits
Drill press with 10, 6 and 3 mm brad point drills
Awl
Screwdriver
Utility knife
Hacksaw
10 mm chisel
Squares and rules
F- and C-clamps
P120 and P240 sandpaper. P600 wetsandpaper
Sanding block
Wood glue, fabric glue


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## Kenbo (Sep 16, 2008)

*Wow.*

A beautiful finished product. Whoever the recipient is will absolutely love it. Your wood choices for this project were perfect and the finish looks beautiful. Great work. Thanks so much for the detailed documentation. You are truly a skilled woodworker.
:thumbsup:


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## johnnie52 (Feb 16, 2009)

Seeing the final project makes the wait worth it! :thumbsup:

I actually like the appearance of the sap wood at the hinges. Makes a kind of separation line.

I'm sure whoever gets it will love it. Just be prepared to make several more for the grand daughter's mother....


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## cody.sheridan-2008 (May 23, 2010)

love the project looks great!


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## frankp (Oct 29, 2007)

Great final project, Longknife! This challenge has turned into quite an inspiring thing for me, thanks for your participation. 

I have to agree with Johnnie, I actually like the sapwood being visible. Can't please everyone though...


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