17th French Canadian Traveling Chest Found in Fine Woodworking

GolfSteve in Calgary
>I built this chest as part of 1 of Rob Cosman'due south Advanced Hand-Tool Courses. It'south a reproduction of a 17th Century French Canadian Travelling Chest. I thought I would post a few pictures of the finished product, so share how information technology was congenital:

An commodity on building this chest was published in Fine Woodworking Issue 56 (January/Feb 1986), pages 67-69 by Peter Schuerch. I managed to obtain a re-create of this article by visiting the basement athenaeum of Calgary'south Primal Library.

Peter Schuerch described the box equally follows: "I based my blueprint on illustrations in Jean Pallardy's volume, The Early on Furniture of French Canada. The chest is meaty enough to tuck under a person'south arm, yet sufficiently sturdy to be bounced effectually in a canoe or small gunkhole. Although the chest appears to be coopered like a butt, it's actually a square box that is carved to look round."

Building this box completely with hand-tools was a pile of work. I gauge nosotros spent 65 hours during the grade, at which indicate I had the box assembled, but had not mounted the hinges, cleaned up the dovetails, or done any finishing. This took me some other 10 hours, for a total of 75 hours on this project.

The outset step was to cross-cutting and rip some 12" wide past 3" thick Eastern White Pine, so dimension these into blanks for the box sides. The blanks were viii-1/2" wide by 24" long by 2-1/2" thick.

Next, the radius for the sides was laid out on the blanks using a divider to scribe one line at 5-3/four" radius and a 2d line at 5-1/4" radius - giving sides with a finished thickness of 1/2". The wood was selected from the centre portion of the tree and so that the growth rings roughly aligned with the curvature. This avoids brusk grain near the top and lesser of the blank.

Now the real work began. The inside curvature of the blanks was roughed out using an adze. I was sure glad that Rob provided the authentic 1750'due south OSHA approved shin guards.

Following the adze, the sides were planed to the scribed lines first using a scrub aeroplane, then finishing upwardly with a round bottom plane. The radius of the plane bottom was around 5-iii/16 - slightly under the desired radius of the sides. This plane was fabricated by Rob and provided to us for the class. A small 1/eight" broad flat spot was left at the top and bottom of the blank to avert a delicate knife edge on the woods.

Next, the blanks were flipped over and the outside of the blank was planed down to the scribed line using a variety of planes. This was a bit touchy because not very much weight could be applied to the blank without risking bang-up the darn thing in half. Shaping the blanks took a adept 12 hours of hard labour, so repeating this task was not on my wish list.

The end pieces were now cut from some nominally 4/4 stock, just which actually measured nearly ane.5" thick (more labour...). The pieces were dimensioned to 11-one/2" long by 10-1/4" high by seven/8" thick. The next step was one of the most critical steps. The radius of the sides was scribed onto the cease-pieces, but starting time the centre of the arcs needed to exist accurately located on both sides of the board. This was done using dividers. Failure to accurately locate the centre on both sides of the board results in a gap in the dovetails later (if your dovetail baselines are not the same on the inside and outside of the board, when you chisel abroad the dovetail waste, the chiseled surface area volition not exist square to the face up of the board).

The blank above is tall plenty so that the height two" can exist cut off the pinnacle of the board to form the sides of the lid subsequently. Cutting this slice off allows the grain on ends of the breast to lucifer the grain on the ends of the lid.

Here's a shot of me at this point of the projection during the course. This was Tuesday around luncheon fourth dimension and I was beginning to remember that I might actually be able to consummate this projection in the five days we had bachelor...

At present the ends are roughed to shape using a saw and spokeshave, so shaved to the scribed line using a aeroplane. In fact, the ends could have been left proud of the scribed line, then cleaned up once the breast had been dovetailed together.

The dovetails for the ends were now laid out past drawing a centreline down the board and, using an angle gauge, drawing lines out at 10 degrees off of horizontal. A 1/4" broad groove was cut into the bottom of the board to accomodate the breast bottom after.

The pieces of wood were now starting to look like a chest. In this photo I was triple checking my transfer of the end dovetails onto the sides. I did Not desire to end upwardly with a Z shaped box (my usual mistake when making drawers...) The tails were transferred onto the sides by standing the sides upwards on the ends and carefully scribing the lines. This was a bit of a balancing act, and the presence of a helper was great assistance.

The waste was chiselled from the sides with assistance of chopping blocks. Much to my surprise, cutting the dovetails was actually one of the easiest parts of this projection. This motion-picture show was taken at 8:40 pm on Tuesday night.

The groove for the bottom was cut into the sides using a molding aeroplane with a 1/4" cutter. The plane had been modified to give enough clearance for the curved lesser.

The really exciting function of the projection was gluing upwards the ends onto the sides - one at a fourth dimension. We diverged from my normal dovetailing exercise past using a large rubber mallet to pound the ii pieces together. The rubber mallet is soft enough that any protruding pins are captivated by the safe while still transferring force to the tails, driving the joint together. One time pounded together, clamps were used to tighten up the joint where required and square the assembly.

Once two sides were glued onto one end, the chest bottom was dimensioned from crude stock to 1/2" thick past the required length and width to match the ends. The console was raised using the same radius bottom plane as before until the edges were ane/4" thick. The edges of the panel were waxed to prevent glue or finish from sticking to the panel during glue-upward.

Once the other end of the box was glued onto the assembly, the blank for the top was cutting and dimensioned from viii/4 (ii" thick) rough stock. The following picture was taken Thursday at eleven:00 am. I ended upward messing up this superlative and had to make another, which was a shame because the growth rings almost exactly matched the desired radius for the lid.

Using the same process every bit before, the lid was roughed out. The particular board that the course was using for the lid had a hidden shake right in the centre of information technology, then we used some authentic 1750's cyanoacrylate glue to stabilize the cracks. Surprisingly, fifty-fifty though we were breaking every dominion for keeping wood from warping when dimensioning it (removing unequal amounts from each side, etc.), the pieces did not warp very much at all.

Here's where I really messed up. Friday morning I was cut the dovetail pins on the hat, and inadvertently marked them out for through dovetails instead of one-half-blind dovetails. The result was that the hat was 1/two" shorter than the rest of the box. In that location was no choice but to build a new lid. In my rush and frustration that morning I didn't take many pictures of the lid construction. The lid ends apply half-blind dovetails to avoid weak tails near the corners of the lid. Here'southward a picture of the projection basically as it was at the end of the class:

The above picture was taken in my shop. I was using some waste pieces I saved from dovetailing the sides to fix a few gaps in the dovetails. These gaps were acquired by one of my centre points on one end being slightly college than the eye point that I had marked on the other side of the cease.

The side by side step was to pin the dovetails. I used a dowel plate to make a pile of one/four" by 2" dowels, which were pounded into a iii/16" pilot hole drilled into the chest pins.

The Eastern White Pine was wonderful to work with - cutting like butter with sharp tools. The but problems with the wood were a tendency to crumble when chopping the waste (a lower angle twenty degree chisel helped this problem a lot), and that the woods was rather bland when freshly cutting. I decided to artificially age the forest a scrap using a solution of 1 tsp. of sodium hydroxide crystals dissolved in a quart of water. This solution oxidizes the surface of the wood merely similar exposure to air over time does. Here's a shot of the colour change induced by the solution:

And the chest with the solution applied. The solution turned the crimson pins from brownish to deep burgundy. The solution leaves the wood with a brighter yellow tinge than I would have liked, only I was as well going to utilize some tung oil - into which the manufacturer has put a bit of purple tint - to annul the yellowness.

While applying the tung oil, I turned my attention to finishing upwards the hardware. The hardware was custom made by a blacksmith in New Brunswick. The blacksmith had left some grinding marks along the edges of the hardware that would requite abroad that this was not fabricated in the 1750'due south. Luckily I have access to steel fabrication equipment at work, so it was a adequately easy task to correct. We heated up the edges of the hinges, and so used a ball point hammer to pound abroad the grinding marks. I besides had to correct the radius of my hinges to lucifer that of my lid - which was slightly nether-radius. A hunk of 12" piping was nearly the perfect match.

We aged the hinges just like you season a cast fe pan - oestrus the steel then employ oil. I used raw linseed oil. Heating the hinges with the torch didn't work very well for aging, and then I took the hinges dwelling house and, while my wife was abroad, aged the hinges in the stove. I also bought some square cut nails from Lee-Valley and aged them.

The hardware was installed on the chest using clenched square cut nails. I don't actually like the wait of the clenched nails on the within of the chest, and also don't like the fact that inevitably you finish up denting the wood while trying to clamp the nails.

I drilled pilot holes a little bit likewise large for the nails on 1 hinge, then that swivel moves a scrap if the chapeau is opened a chip likewise far, but what tin you expect from a chest that is 250 years sometime???

I bought an extra set of hinges so that I can build another chest out of hardwood, simply I think it might be a while before I get up the energy to do so. This chest, when made with handtools, is a pile of labour. If fabricated with hardwood information technology would be even more work.

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