Cherry Blanket Chest #1: The plan and milling material.

I’m building a blanket chest for a relative and thought I’d post some pictures. The design is frame and panel, mortise and tenon. The frame and top is mostly from 1” cherry and the legs are a little larger. Here is a picture of the SketchUp plan:

Google SketchUp works very well for me. I went through a dozen of the 14 free online tutorials at the ChiefWoodworkers’ web site. And can now draw up detailed plans. I’d highly recommend the tutorials.

The opportunity arose to acquire an old but still serviceable computer for the shop. Having the plans right there saves me from running back and forth into the house. I can check measurements and change design elements quickly. It’s my measure twice check.

One of the ChiefWoodworkers’ tutorials covers how to create views. Here are the views of the blanket chest, exactly as they were drawn in the plan.
Legs:

Rails:

Stiles:

Panels:

Top:

I started out by milling the material to rough length and width. First to the jointer to get a straight edge, then to the table saw for the rough width. Then back to the jointer to get a straight face and perpendicular edge. Then back to the table saw to get a parallel edge to the jointed edge and to the planer to get a parallel face to the jointed face. All are still slightly larger than the desired final dimensions.

Cut to rough dimensions:

Most of the 1” stock was still 1 3/8”, so started to resaw with a thin kerf saw blade.

Two feather-boards, before and after the blade kept the material tight to the fence.

After a pass through the band saw, the stock is much closer to the finished dimension.

And I have a bunch of project stock that I cleaned up and put away.

I set the stock aside for a week to allow for any last movement, including the pieces for the top.

After a week, a few passes at the jointer, table saw, and planer and everything is to finished width and depth.

After some time at the mitre saw, it’s all the proper length too.

Panels & joinery tomorrow.

Geez, LJ’s has sure gotten hard to post to. I’d post 3 or 4 images and the next one would hang. It’s so cumbersome I don’t know that I want to continue this blog.

-- Trees, a wonderful gift --Joe--