Chest 1

This project was inspired by our new bed, mainly because we needed something to place our bedspread and blanket on while sleeping instead of the floor. Our old bed had four posts and a nice headboard and footboard which gave us a place to put the bedspread. We were temporally using an old coffee table at the end of the bed for a week or two, which is when I got the idea of making something.

The coffee table is 50" long X 24" deep X 23" tall, which gave me a direction of what we needed. What I'll be making is a chest that is 50" long X 21.5" deep X 21" tall. And I'll incorporate the Chevron pattern into the lid that will match our headboard. The material will be red oak for this project, mainly because most of our furniture is made out of the same. But the Chevron pattern will be made out of Cherry and Alder like I did for the new headboard.

Working with Oak

The first thing I did was run all the pieces through my planner, which were 10 foot pieces of oak. This went quick because this Grizzly planner has a helical cutting head and the finish is perfect and very smooth.

The next step was to cut all my pieces oversize by an inch or so. I'll square and cut them to length after I've done all my glue-ups. Side note: this chest is going to be heavy...very heavy!!

Here I'm prepping each piece for my glue-up's, using my table saw like a jointer. This works really well for this.

Here is the first of two side pieces. The size below is 22" X 21" but this is oversize as well.

Here is the front (or back) and it's 51" long X 22". I've used all my long clamps for this so that evening I ordered more clamps.

While one piece was being glued, I sanded on the other one. That hose runs to my dust collection system and works great.

Here I'm cutting the width of the front to my finish size, and the leftover piece will be used for the self cleats.

The next step was to square the ends and bringing it to length. I'm using my crosscut sled for this and it's about maxed out. Notice the support on the left side, this helped. However, I know this isn't the safest method... but it worked.

I cut my shelf cleats from the leftover scrap pieces. They need to be 3/4" X 3/4"

Here I'm laying out for some screws that will hold the chest together. If you look close, you can see the layout lines next to the arrows. I'll be using five screws per side, 20 total.

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