As with many projects a lot of the work is in set-up and planning so if you are going to build one you may as well build two or more. This is true as well for the Townsend Document Chest project and I will be building two of these beautiful chests, both out of mahogany. I will be building them roughly in parallel, but hoping to use the first chest as a learning platform such that the second chest benefits from any “lessons learned. Still, I have started the primary layout work on the second chest so that when it comes to resawing the stock to the required thickness I can accomplish all of this at the same time. Progress on both chests will be documented in the associated picture gallery, and on posts here from time to time.
Tag Archives: Townsend
Townsend Document Chest Construction Pictures
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Pictures showing the progress of building a reproduction Newport Style Document Chest (actually two of these will be built)- the orginal built by John Townsend. Pictures will be added to this gallery as work proceeds.
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- 3200 Pounds of Mahogany – to be shared
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- Mahogany stacked in the garage – over 800 board feet
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- Mahogany sorted and ready for kitting
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- Fellow GNHW members helping to make the kits
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- Mahogany for the case – over 8′, by 15″
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- Light hand planing to show the figure
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- Mahogany plank ready to be laid out
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- Some beautiful figure in these mahogany boards
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- Number 4 plane next to some beautiful figure
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- Marking with chalk, until the final decision
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- Mahogany ready to be cut
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- Chalk lines define the pieces
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- The piece selected for the top
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- The 8′ plank after initial milling – still need to resaw to thickness
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- Side for 2nd Chest
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- Top for 2nd Chest
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- Side for 2nd Chest
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- Layout of case pieces for 2nd Chest
First work on the Townsend document chest.
It starts with a brush off….
After moving the mahogany for the Townsend Document Chest into the workshop to begin to acclimate to the interior humidity levels, the first step in the material preparation is a heavy brushing of the wood to remove any loose debris, sand, etc. This helps to avoid extra wear on the plane irons as I start to process the wood. Continue reading
No rushing this project!
With Hurricane Irene starting to bear down on the Northeast, a tractor trailer arrived at the shop with 3,200 pounds of beautiful mahogany. This is a beautiful dense hardwood, and weighing about four pounds per board foot this shipment totaled just over 800 board feet. While I would love to claim all this material for myself, it actually will be split up among nineteen woodworkers. We will be building reproductions of a wonderful document chest originally fashioned by John Townsend in Newport Rhode Island in the eighteenth century. We will be doing this over a period of eighteen months or so as we follow along as master craftsman Alan Breed demonstrates the process at our GNHW Period Furniture meetings.
I will be posting regular progress reports here as well as on the Guild website.