This Chest Needs A Floor

If you have been following along you will remember that I was trying to make up my mind on the floor material. I knew I would make veneer and use plywood for a substrate to do away with any worries concerning expansion and contraction from humidity changes, but I was not sure if I wanted to use Tennessee aromatic cedar or Spanish cedar. I ended up getting some of each. The Spanish cedar is the board on the right.

I'll use the aromatic cedar for the floor. I bought the nicest boards I could find but the aromatic cedar is common grade and pretty gnarly product. Lots of knots and splits. The Spanish cedar is FAS grade and clear as far as I can see without planing it. I won't be applying a finish to the parts made from these species so they can keep releasing the aromas they are famously used for.

Below I have marked with chalk how I have chosen to cut these boards. I need enough pieces for both sides of the floor which is about 18 X 36 inches. I'll try the widest board first. When I mill this out I will follow the split which will give me a 5 1/2" wide piece on one side and a 2 to 2 1/2" piece on the other side. The middle of the lower piece can be cut into a 3" wide clear piece. The material is 1" thick, so I should get 5 or 6  re-sawn pieces 1/8" thick out of it. It should be enough. I have the other boards marked for the clearest 36" sections but I don't think I will need them. I definitely overbought since I am not sure how this stuff will re-saw so I will be prepared with some extra.

First I crosscut the board at the mark in the middle. Due to the split this makes two pieces. Now I need to make a straight edge on each board. I mark a pencil line with a straightedge where I want to cut. Then I tack on a straight piece of plywood, wider than the board, to give me an edge to run along the rip fence.

I set the fence for the width of the plywood,

turn on the saw and rip! Here the piece is ripped at the edge of the ply.

And here I have some nice clear material to make veneer out of.

I jointed,

then planed,

before I set up the bandsaw to re-saw the boards.

I am cutting about 1/8" thick slices and got 5 per board.

It's real pretty, and smells nice too! Well Thats all for now. Check back again and see how it's going.

Making Book Matched Panels

Book matching can produce some very striking results. The mirroring of the grain usually makes for some dynamic looking panels. Book matching lumber (as opposed to book matching sliced veneer) can be a bit tricky. You have to try to judge the pattern from the outside since you won't see it until you cut the piece open. You look at both sides and try to make an educated guess as to what may be going on in the interior of the piece. The more material you remove after the initial cut, the more the grain pattern can change. When you do finally make the cut for the book match, you get to see if your suppositions are correct. You can also run across defects in the wood that weren't visible from the outside, like cracks, knots and voids. Since commercial veneer is sliced there is no loss of material between slices and the match will be about as good as you can get.

To compensate for these inherent difficulties I try to use material where the grain is fairly straight through the thickness of the board. Extreme angles in the grain from top face to bottom face can result in a poor match. I also keep any thickness planing to a minimum on the faces I want to match. I leave the material a bit long and wide, just in case there is any movement in the wood after milling. Sometimes to achieve a good match the boards must be offset lengthwise a bit and the extra length is necessary.  Eventually I will size everything to exact size but I will not do that until I have glued the panels together.


With the lumber all approximately sized and planed I set up the bandsaw to re saw the panels.

First re saw,

then set aside the sized piece and joint the band sawn face of the other piece,

then back to the bandsaw for the second piece, and repeat. 

I could have milled everything down to the same thickness, then re sawn, but I wanted to keep the thin cuts that would be left over for future use.

Once the re sawing was done I then ran everything through the planer. 

Now it is all stickered and I will see if anything changes after being opened up.

Here are the panels for the front of the chest. It is a little hard to see the figure but if you click on the picture you can see it larger.

A closer shot of one of the panels

Next I'll be gluing the panels up, then sizing, fielding, and finishing them. Then I'll start on the framework.

Thanks for taking a look. I hope you check back again and see what I've been doing.

Blanket Chest Lumber

After another trip to the lumber store I now have all the material that I need for the blanket chest project. I have milled it all to approximate dimensions and have figured out where each piece will go. I will start producing the book-matched panels soon. I milled that material first since I knew I would pre-finish the panels prior to assembly.

Here is a shot of the material for the lid

And a shot of the walnut with a sample of the frame pieces in position

Today I sat down and worked out the details for the joinery. There is a bit of complexity where the legs and frame come together but I think I have the details pretty well nailed down now. 

In the meantime, I still need to make an astragal for the double doors so I will probably work on that for a while. By the way, I sure do like having the dust collector out of my shop. I gained a fair amount of floor space and it is quieter when only the dust collector is running. 

Til next time, thanks for taking a look.

Milling Lumber

Milling lumber from rough stock is an enjoyable endeavor to me. As each board is jointed I get a good look at the grain pattern and color. At this point I can make some critical judgements about the placement and use for each piece. I work hard to try to make the grain of the boards I use "work" harmoniously together, at least to my eye.

I begin milling by breaking the large pieces down into smaller sizes where possible. This makes the material easier to handle and also reduces the amount of stock removal for bowed and cupped pieces. I use a chop saw or skil saw to cut stock to length and the band saw to rip cut.

Now I flatten one face at the jointer. The jointer and planer I own (Powermatic 8" jointer PJ-882HH and 15" planer 15HH) both have Byrd helical cutterheads. These heads really work well in figured wood. I experienced almost no tearout in this maple and I know from running this type of stuff through a jointer and planer with straight knives that that is remarkable. The helical design also makes the machine quieter but I always wear hearing protection when running almost any tool.

Next I joint an edge square to the just flattened face, then the stock is ready to be thickness planed and ripped to width.

I started milling with the maple since I had a good idea of what I needed from each piece and I was eager to see the figure in the pieces I had bought. Here I have jointed one face flat.

And here I have jointed an edge at 90 degrees to the face and have planed the opposite face. The material is stickered and resting for a few days before final sizing and resawing. I'm pleased with the material and think it will make some gorgeous panels.

The walnut took a while to figure out what to cut where.  I am still mulling things over for this project and fear I may be short a bit on material. I had chosen some material to resaw for legs which was riff sawn, and I thought I had all the other parts figured out but I'm still making decisions.  Here is the rough stock waiting to be made into something.

Here is most of the stock milled into rough sizes.

 Here is an action shot of me resawing at the bandsaw...

and the produce of my effort.

The boards on the left must have had some inner tension because they both bowed to the outside in the middle when resawn. I was planning to use those for the top rails of the frame front and back but will have to see if they will still work. They may lose too much material when flattened. If so I will have to rethink my layout. At this point I have stickered everything and will let it set for a few days before I start final sizing and joinery. Well, that does it for now. I'll be back in a couple of days with more.