Several people have asked for drawings of the three-tiered Nicholson campaign chest I’m finishing up this month.
The bad news: I don’t have detailed drawings.
Good news: You don’t need them.
The chest is built using the same techniques shown in “Campaign Furniture.” The only differences are the drawer graduations and the fact that there are three cases instead of two. I suppose that the feet are a bit different, but I just made those up and you can do that, too.
Below is a zipped SketchUp file of my working drawing. It is just a box with some dimensions on it – nothing to get excited about (there’s a reason they have “sketch” in the name of the program). If you don’t own SketchUp, you can open the file in the free SketchUp viewer.
After the busiest Spring on record, I’ve managed to turn down the volume a bit in the workshop and return my focus to the new projects for “The Anarchist’s Design Book.” One of the projects I’m most excited about is a so-called Mule Chest.
I’ve always liked the format. It’s a chest with a couple drawers and it is incredibly easy to build with nails and rabbets. (Much easier than a traditional chest of drawers.) Mule chests look great in pine or an inexpensive hardwood. And they go together as quickly as a six-board chest.
In designing my version for “The Anarchist’s Design Book,” I wanted to retain its historical simplicity but bring the form into the present day. That meant reducing the ornamentation and adding some asymmetry.
It looks good on paper. And the mule’s skeleton is looking promising as well.
The good news is that if the design looks like crap, it will be easy to bang out another one with different proportions.
Even on my final project – pre-worm-food – I’m sure I’ll remind myself to “begin at the bottom or the back.”
What does that mean? Basically, whenever I perform an operation that will be repeated, I start by working the least-visible area. In a blanket chest, that means dovetailing the least-visible back corner first. When fitting drawers, I begin with the bottom drawer (which is the hardest to see when you are standing before the finished item). When installing hardware, I begin with the hinge, plate or pull that is hardest to see.
This should be obvious to everyone all the time. But when I teach classes and observe other woodworkers, almost all of them begin instead with the most visible joint, drawer, hinge etc.
Today I started installing all the strapwork and corner guards on this Nicholson three-tiered campaign chest. And I remembered to begin by first chopping out the mortises that will eventually face the wall. That allowed me to warm up and work out any details of my chopping and fitting process.
As luck would have it, these mortises (which no one else will see) also happened to be my most-perfect ones.
So drat. But still, always begin work at the bottom or back.
The handplane I use the most is the one that receives the least love.
My old Stanley jack plane, a $12 purchase at a Kentucky fair, has its original chipbreaker and iron, which is just about sharpened down to a nub. When I disassembled the plane yesterday I noticed that its iron was so dull that its edge looked almost rounded over. The chipbreaker was covered in sap. Even the lever cap had to be scraped clean of sticky debris.
I usually sharpen it only two or three times a year – more if someone asks me for a lesson in sharpening curved irons.
While some of you might be on the verge of calling the Abuse Line for Handplanes (800-241-TOOL), I can assure you that this is the sort of working relationship that jack planes love and thrive on. Even when slightly neglected, they work like crazy.
And my jack plane sees a ton of use, even on commercial jobs.
This campaign chest I’m finishing up has three separate units for drawers, seven drawers and what seems like an acre of secondary/interior surfaces. When it came to cleaning up all these surfaces, the jack was my first and only choice.
I’d go broke if I smooth planed all the drawer bottoms – inside and out. These were glued-up panels, so they had to get cleaned up. And they had to fit perfectly in their grooves.
The jack does this work in one or (at most) two passes on a board. No other tool – electric or otherwise – can leave such a pleasant surface with that speed. That is, unless you prefer an #80 belt-sanded surface, which is honestly an option if you prefer power sanding – I don’t. (I’m sure some of you are saying, “But what about widebelt sanding machines?” Come talk to me in person, and we’ll chat.)
When my customer reaches into these drawers, he might feel the soft undulations left by the curved iron on the drawer bottoms. He might think nothing of it. Or he might think “huh, handwork.”
Here’s what I think when I feel those undulations: “Thanks, Jack.”
