Blanket Chest

 This is the next piece in our bedroom furniture.  This gets the sheets and blankets out of my son's closet.  This project posed some design concerns.  The first one was how it was going to fit in with the rest of the bedroom furniture.  I am using a mission style.  I have kept open sides but the chest cannot have open sides or front.  There were a lot of different ideas that I had to accomplish this look.  The one that I settled on was grooving all the cherry parts and the walnut was in insert panel.  

Another design concern was the weight of the lid.  The lid is made of three pieces of 1 3/4" thick cherry.  The total weight of the lid is 35 lbs.  I did not want the lid slamming shut and hurting someone.  There is not a lid stay on the the market, that I could find, to handle a 51" x 21" top with that weight.  I did find torsion hinges from Rockler that I liked.  The calculator does work but it said my top was too big.  If I took the lid and divided it into two lids, it said to use 2  - 60 inch-pounds torsion hinges.  So it takes 240 inch pounds to open the chest.  The lid does not slam shut.  I am happy the way the lid turned out.

The lesson learned from the lid is that the case needs to be heavier than the lid.  It does once it was filled.  When it wasn't, it was a tipping hazard.  

Other designs features that are part of the chest:

• The bottom of the chest is made from tongue and grooved aromatic cedar,  It is said to repel bugs so I put it in our of tradition
• The top has two battens that are installed with sliding dovetails.  This is the first time using this type of joint,  I did not execute it as well as I had hoped but it still works to keep the top flat.  This was the part that I was most nervous about because if I screwed it up it is a lot of wood that becomes firewood,
• All joints are mortise and tenons.  I made these using a router instead of hand chopping them out.  This seemed to be easier then drilling and cleaning them out.  They were a more consistent making the tenons easier to make.
• Inserts are walnut.  I was going to make them out of maple for the contrast.  I am glad I didn't.  The cherry will darken over time.  The two wood tones will compliment over time.
• The front was originally going to look like two drawers.  It was not going to look as good.  I was also going to add an internal tray.  That also was removed.

I really like how the features come together.  This was a challenge in getting all the lines to line up and offsets look the same.  There are a couple of things that did not go as plan.  The parts for the sides should have been the same for the front and back.  I was off by 1/4".  It all worked out.  

The other design feature is the inserts are not glued into the center curved pieces.  This is to allow the wood to expand and contract.  It may never cause a problem but I did not want the joints to break over time.

I like how the project turned out and it fits with the other bedroom furniture.  The next piece is going to be the chest of drawers.  That is next year