Tuesday, November 6, 2012

It was Necessary, So I Built It



I was called in to work today on my day off.  While driving, I was thinking about the chest Christopher Schwarz discussed in a recent post on his blog.  It so happens that I was stuck in traffic for about an hour.  I called my boss, and she said I wasn't needed anymore afterall, so I might as well turn around.

This is where my idea for the nailed chest took some form.

CS said that this style of furniture is driven by what materials were immediately available to the builder.  Stuff that was readily available and easy to work.

To me, I thought that the perfect material for a modern interpretation would be the laminated boards you can get at the big box store.

I stopped by an OBI to see what they had.  Usually they have laminated spruce, pine, beech and sometimes oak or acacia.  I wanted spruce because it is usually the cheapest.  Maybe pine, because it is so much nicer to work.

Looking at the rack, there was a surprise.  They had boards of laminated wood in what they called paulownia.  I had never heard of it, but the grain was even, no knots, and it was relatively cheap.  Perfect.

I bought a couple boards two meters long and 30 cm. wide.  I didn't know what the lid was going to be, so I bought an 80x40 cm board for that, just in case (turns out I didn't use it).



This wood is interesting in that it is extremely light.  I think spruce is about twice as heavy as this stuff.  It should work just fine for this project.

I think using this material fits perfect with the intent of this project.  This should be something that looks nice, yet is a quick and dirty build.  That is exactly what it was.

I downloaded CS's sketchup plan, as he describes in his blog.  I was a bit worried I didn't have enough wood, as he uses a 12 foot board and a 10 foot board.  I had two boards just over six feet each.

So, what I did was make a smaller chest.  I have a big blanket chest, and the only reason I wanted to build this one is that it looked fun.  I'm sure I'll find something that it is necessary for later.

I took a few photos of the process, and came to this level of completion in about three hours.  That is including plenty of going back to the plans to see what to do next.





A couple of points about this wood:

The disappointing thing was that when I took the plastic off, I couldn't believe that there were several knots and areas of tearout where putty was applied to cover up the damage.  I really didn't look that close through the plastic, but I had no need to suspect this.  I tried to keep these areas to the inside of the chest as much as possible.

The great thing about this wood is how easy it is to work.  My rip saw flew through it like it was Styrofoam.  The long rips weren't anything like work.

I didn't really measure anything while building this, but my guess is the final dimensions are 50 cm high, about 75 cm wide, and a foot or so deep.

All I have left to do is a little moulding, if I feel like it, and some milk paint.

I have some thoughts about the joinery.  I think the reason for the rabbets (actually filetsters) is two-fold:  First, it makes the chest extremely strong, even though I only nailed the fronts and the backs.  The rabbets provide structural integrity to the sides.  Second, the rabbets made it easy to line up the carcase to nail together.  I couldn't quite figure out how to clamp it together so I could start pounding nails in it, but it turned out I didn't have to.  I just lined up one side, tacked a wire nail in, lined the other side up and drove in the rest of the nails.  No measuring, no having to square things up (the bottom does that for you when you slide it home).

One design difference I implemented from the plan was I put battens on the inside of the lid, rather than on the outside.  Probably because the leftover wood I had was a bit too short for that, and I thought I could return the 80x40 piece.


When  I showed it to my wife, she said, "Perfect! You need a bedside table."

17 comments:

  1. Nice! And it does turn out that you needed a bedside table! Wonderful! Lucky thing you got stuck in traffic for an hour so you could get the idea in your head.

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  2. Good looking six board chest. Did you use hinges or the battens to keep the lid in place?

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    1. Right now it doesn't have hinges, but the battens indeed are keeping the lid from sliding off.

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    1. Thanks for posting this, I've been looking at laminated boards for a while now thinking they might work well for a tool chest. I have to get around to finishing the workbench first

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    2. Wikipedia on Paulownia

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paulownia

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    3. Hi KP,

      I think for a project like this they are fine. Probably for a toolchest, too. Especially if you paint it.

      I wouldn't use paulownia for a toolchest, though. It would look really beat up in a hurry. This stuff is pretty soft.

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  4. Good looking job. Did you use glue on the corners as well as nails?

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    1. No glue, just wire nails. You wouldn't believe how strong it is. My guess is this is better as of the cross grain structure of the design might make it come apart if you glued it.

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  5. Sweet work Brian. Are you going to clinch the nails through the lid? I recommend it.

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    1. You'll probably have to look close, but I did clinch them. Only I screwed up one really bad and it looks clinched on the wrong side.

      The Frau doesn't like the look of the clinched nails, I don't think she's seen them before.

      BTW, you said in your last post that I wasn't a Chris Schwarz fanboy. I was thinking of that while building this project using your plans, on my Roubo bench, working out of my Anarchist's Tool Chest, using a sawbench based on your first one, and laying out the crosscuts with the layout square I built in your class. Maybe not a fanboy, but definitely an avid consumer of all that is CS.

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  6. Great Project - and done very fast! good postig
    To build this box is definitively on my roadmap, but at the moment I am 12h a day in the office all week long.

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    1. The great thing about this project was that this was probably the fastest I have ever built anything. No glue-ups. Only a couple of cuts and a few nails pounded and it's done.

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  7. Brian,
    Paulownia (AKA Kiri in Japan) was a common species used for Tansu. Since traditionally Tansu was used by merchants who were the like today's (or at least the 50s) door to door salesman. They carried their wares with them so the tansu needed to be strong and very lightweight. Paulownia is a very strong wood as it grows very fast though it is ring porous with bands of very large pores which drastically reduce the density. I quite enjoy working with it and it is common to find in large timber sizes too. Great chest and go on ya for experimenting with a new species/product.

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    1. Thanks, Shannon!

      The label on the package said the English word for paulownia is Chinese Bluebell. I think it would be great for packing boxes or cases that need to be light weight.

      I finished it up the other day with some store-bought moulding. You know, to go along with the quick and dirty theme. It has some red milk paint on it, and will get another color on top of that. When it is done and in place, I'll post some more photos.

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  8. Can't wait to see the photo of the finished product.

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  9. I seem to remember an old Fine Woodworking article on Paulonia, on how stable it was.
    And that when Chines dishes were sent here, they used the fluff-like Paulonia sees as packing materials...in areas where they threw the seeds out the door and it took, it grows well....to the point that some Japanese come here to bu the trees, IIRC.

    I've enjoyed working with it.

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