Video Journey - Oak Dovetailed Blanket Chest

Great looking chest John. A very nice surprise.

-- Karson Southern Delaware karson_morrison@bigfoot.com

Nice chest, John. I’m sure it was a great surprise!

-- You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation. (Plato)

Wow..that is very nice. Quality joinery…simple and elegant. That is an heirloom piece for sure!

-- Women love me.....trees fear me

John -

Awesome chest! I always enjoy your posts and video links.

David

-- http://foldingrule.blogspot.com

Thank you kindly friends – I appreciate your compliments and feedback!

-- John Nixon - Buffalo, NY - www.EagleLakeWoodworking.com

John,

Great video! Both the woodworking and production were excellent. I’m sure that your friend will be very happy with the result.

By the way, we are neighbors…I live in Webster, NY – suburb of Rochester!

-- Mark, Webster New York, Visit my website at http://thecraftsmanspath.com

Beautiful work, great video. Thanks John.

-- Better to say nothing and be thought the fool... then to speak and erase all doubt.

Hi John:

That’s an excellent video.

I liked the double bearing on the straight pattern bit, good idea…..better than a LumberJock climb cut.

QUESTION: You had a tough choice when deciding on the machining operation for the full mortice for the lock. I see the dilemna of the amount of exposed bit. What was your thought process in using your motorized router??? What other approach were you thinking there if any.

Nicely done, John….....Neil

Thanks Neil. I appreciate your compliments – it means a lot coming from you.

The stock for the front of the blanket chest is 3/4 inch thick and the mortise for the lockset needed to be a heavy 1/2” wide and just under 2 inches deep. That leaves less than an 1/8” wall remaining after I’m done cutting the mortise. Believe me, I thought about this one long and hard.
Here’s some of the methods I considered
1.) Get out the chisel and chop it out by hand.
2.) Build a simple jig that would guide my plunge router handheld.
3.) Use a Forstner bit in the drill press. I have an old Shopsmith, and I think I have the clearance could get the carcass underneath the bit.
4.) Mortise it on the router table employing the motorized lift.

Here’s why I didn’t go with #1 – 3:
1.) I’m not really keen on chiseling mortises. Some of my apprehension is my chisels and the rest is my lack of experience in this technique. I also find it time consuming (probably because I’m not that good at it).
2.) I didn’t like the idea of that much bit sticking out of my handheld router. I also didn’t like the idea of building a jig.
3.) The material remaining in the wall of the chest was too thin to risk doing it with a Forstner bit because sometimes they wander.

I went with #4 because I have successfully done deep mortises with this method before. This situation was unique in the fact that the piece was rather large. The concept was the same – to know the boundaries of the mortise and move the piece within those boundaries while advancing the bit upwards. I did this by marking the center of the mortise on the blanket chest and positioning the chest on the router table aligned with the center of the bit. Then I marked that piece of masking tape you see in the video with the left and right boundaries of the mortise. After that, I just need to keep the chest against the fence and move it left to right within the lines on the masking tape.

I am open to alternative suggestions and techniques for this. I was at my limit with the size of this piece, where I wouldn’t want to use this method if the piece was any larger.

-- John Nixon - Buffalo, NY - www.EagleLakeWoodworking.com

Thanks Chip and Mark for your kind words.
Mark, very cool that we’re in the same general area. I stopped by your site and read your review on Kelly Mehler’s lecture from your woodworking club. Very nice indeed. I wish I was a little closer and less busy, I’d join the club.

While I was at your site http://thecraftsmanspath.com, I took at a look at your work and I was excited and impressed. You have done some great work in the Arts and Crafts style. Your finish looks awesome (I love the tone). Your latest table with the Asian influence is a great design.

Thanks again for commenting on the video.

John

-- John Nixon - Buffalo, NY - www.EagleLakeWoodworking.com

John,

I noticed this in the video as well. Though your router lift works well, it did look awkward moving that large chest over the bit.

I would have probably marked out the mortise location and roughed it out with a hand drill with a slightly undersized drill bit. Then I would have cleaned up the mortise with a chisel. I think that even with modrtate chiseling skills this would be very doable. I can see where with the 1/8” walls chopping out the mortise could have caused problems when levering out the waste.

-- Mark, Webster New York, Visit my website at http://thecraftsmanspath.com

Hi John:

Excellent answer for us all. That was a tough call…I was thinking hand-held router, but hedged on the exposed bit, drilling and chiseling….oh that wall is thin…...Then I thought rout before assembly, but the width of the board means another re-worked fence for just one piece…............you know your tools; nice call you made.

I enjoy watching you work….....Neil

Nice chest John. I liked the video too. Great job.

-- Bill, Turlock California, http://www.brookswoodworks.com