Orphaned Oak
Fluted chest
This is a box that came about because of some oddments I had left over from dismantling various cupboards and sideboards.
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Looking at a few of the carved oak doors that I had laying around the workshop, I decided they might be pulled together into a chest, with a bit of ingenuity. First I fixed the four pieces into a box shape, with a bottom made from a single piece of an old tabletop fixed into grooves in the bottom of the side panels.
All the old brown varnish took a bit or scraping to get off all those curves and corners.
I dismanteld an old cupboard door and cut and rearranged the pieces so I could transform them into a panelled top
I made a frame with two mid-way cross-rails, framing three contoured panels. The panels were shaped to suit, with chamfered edges and ends, and the frame grooved to take the edges of the panels.
The next task was to put all nine pieces together to form the box lid.
Looking good all waxed and polished up. I put a 3-inch wide strip of oak along the back part of the top, to take the hinges; fixed on with hand-forged iron nails.. I put thin, shaped strips down the corners, to hide the joins. These strips were the back rails of an old oak dining chair. Also fixed with iron nails. Two long shaped strips were added to the ends as carrying handles. They also do a neat job of hiding the join where I had to add in a piece of oak as the ends were not as high as the sides (as you can see in earlier pictures).
Now it is time to add the hinges and fix the lid in place. I was lucky enough to find some very attractive rough-forged iron fleur-de-lys hinges, very much in keeping with the chest. Again these were fixed using iron, rose-head nails.
The finished box, after its first waxing. Looking at home outside or inside.
