Shopsmith Forums

I do woodworking only in the Winter, and with the arrival of November, I call it Winter now. I finally finished up all my Summer outdoor projects. The leaves are raked, the apples are picked and made into apple cider. (33 gallons this year).

My first project for this Winter is to build two cedar chests for two granddaughters. These chests will be made from butternut. I'm copying a chest I made back in 1988 of walnut. The walnut one looks like this.


The two new ones will look the same except the wood will be butternut instead of black walnut.

So, today my Shopsmith is making lots of sawdust.

Nice chest. The girls will undoubtedly treasure theirs when they receive them.

You do have the dust collector connected and turned on, right? Not doing so is one of my tricks (for which I pay dearly).

I don't have a dust collector. I rely on dust masks and a broom to handle that job.

You said cedar chests. Are they cedar-lined?

Yes, inside they are cedar lined. The outside is whatever I'm in the mood to build. When these two are finished it brings my total to 18 that I've built. (large family) A few are alike, but many were different from the others.

Lucky family!!!!

Very impressive! Look forward to seeing your butternut versions ...

I have a few boards of rather knotty cedar, and had no idea what I might use them for. I really like the chest-lining idea. Any chance we could see a pic of an interior, to see how you did the lining?

Think 1/4" thick tongue and groove boards .

Yes, I use the 1/4" aromatic cedar closet lining boards available at Menards. Simply glue it to the inside of the box after building. If you have cedar boards, you could probably resaw and plane them to 1/4" and do the same job.
It ends up looking like this.