Kyserike Kraftsman

This was a special project that was a gift for my Mom for her 70th birthday. I started the project on January 30th (See the chronological history of the project below). Her birthday was March 19th, which didn’t leave me much time for completing the project.

I built this chest from some black walnut stock that my Dad had rough cut over 25 years ago. Finished it with Danish Oil and wipe on poly as I do all my walnut projects. Below you will find the gory details of my first major build. I enjoyed this project and learned quite few new techniques in the process. I hope you enjoy the reading.

Interested in building one of these yourself for someone special? You can find the plans here:

Lingerie And Jewelry Chest Plan

I got about 10 hours sleep in the last three days, but the project is done, and just in time for Mom’s birthday celebration at my Sister’s house today.

The assembeld carcase

I finished assembling the carcase today.

I used a biscuit jointer to create the joints between the drawer bottoms and the sides and back panel. The walnut banding on the sides and the back panel was also joined with biscuits.

To assemble the sides, back, and drawer dividers I used 50 biscuits! That’s 100 biscuit slots that needed to be cut exactly!

I assembled it in three stages. First the left side, back panel and top and bottom dividers making sure that this assembly was perfectly square and true. I let that dry overnight and then added all the drawer dividers next and dry fitted the right side to help support the drawer dividers. Lastly I glued the right side of the carcase to complete the assembly.

On to the wings next !

I’ve been too busy trying to get this done in time for Mom’s birthday so I haven’t had a chance to do many updates to the web page. Things are progressing, but we are about to enter crunch time.

Most of the walnut has been cut to size and I’ve assembled and routered the decorative base. I’ve been experimenting with creating dovetail joints to use on the drawers. They are time consuming and tricky to get right but I think it will add a nice touch. I should begin the assembly of the carcase by the weekend …. Stay tuned.

I officially started building the actual chest today. I’ve got about one month to complete it.

Drawer Dividers

This weekend I worked on creating the drawer dividers. There are eight dividers in the chest made of 1/2″ plywood with edge banding for the front edge. The plan called for a 3/4″ edging, but I decided on using a 2″ edging instead so that I could use the same edge parts for the drawer dividers and the back and front piece edging.

The plan also called for using finishing nails and glue to attach the edging. I decided to use a tongue and groove joint instead (I don’t own a biscuit jointer yet) so that I didn’t need to use nails to attach the edging.

Using the table saw I created a 5/32″ x 1/4″ tongue on each walnut piece and a corresponding groove on the plywood. To keep the plywood square on the table saw as I was making the cuts I also needed to make a tall auxiliary fence to support the piece.

Edge Joining for the wings

I started to create the sides (wings) for the chest this weekend also.

The sides are approximately 32″ x 12″ which is wider than any of the boards that I have available, so I needed to take two boards and edge glue them together to form a board of the required width.

Both sides and the top and bottom of the chest all require to piece together two or more lengths to reach the required width. For each of these the two panels that will be used were cut from the same 2″ thick rough cut walnut plank so that I could try and match the grain pattern easier.