Pirate Chest

The first completely hand tool project that I completed is a Pirate chest I made for my son. The treasures he has been keeping in there are his SillyBandz.

It was made from a pallet that I brought home on the top of my car so the boards were just rough cut. I had to surface plane each of the boards flat, edged them so all the sides were the same height. For the top, I ripped four pieces out of each boards width. This was less time consuming then I thought it would be and it really put my Disston rip saw to good use.

The top boards were applied one at a time, the next board was planed to match the angle of the preceding boards. I think there is some math formula that would tell you exactly what angle each of the boards need to be but I just did it all by eye. The boards were glued and clamped, because of this I could only do 2 at a time. one on the front, and one on the back. On those days I was really ambitious I could get 4 boards glued up in one day so it took me close to a month to get the top glued together.

The arch on the lid sides was drawn using a long compus. The hinges were bent to match, it took a bit of fiddling but it fits well.

The corners of the sides were dovetailed together.