Boarded Chest

This chest was made as a gift for Lord Ishmael Steadfast Reed as part of an Atlantian Academe d'Espee tradition for the receipt of a White Scarf (the Grant of Arms for fencing). The design was based heavily on the pictured boarded chest, but I looked at many extant 16th century boarded chests for inspiration. The design was mine, but the construction was heavily guided and subsidized by Master Ruaidhri an Cu who provided the workshop, tools, and expertise.

Extant boarded chests commonly range in size from 24-48" wide and 15-20" in height. The dimensions of the inspiration piece were 16"H x 12.5"W x 33.5"L. The dimensions of my final piece were 18"H x 11.5"W x 36"L. This allowed me to use 12" wide boards and make a comfortable seat for two. I used red oak since it was the only variety easily available to me.

The chest pieces were cut using modern power tools but most of the finishes (sanding, glueing, nailing, staining, and sealing) were done by hand. After drawing out a plan, the first step was to cut out all the pieces and mock up the chest. Before assembly, Master Ruaidhri and I attempted to dremmel decorative lines into the face of the chest. It turns out that oak is incredibly hard and quickly dulled all our bits. After one and a half failures (and some new, sharp bits), we succeeded in creating decorative lines on the face board.

We assembled the chest using wood glue and rose-headed nails (modern look-alikes to one type of 16th century nail). We pre-drilled the holes to avoid splitting the super hard oak, and the chest went together beautifully!

After the power tool work was complete, Ruaidhri left me to my own devices and completed the final sanding, finishing, and attaching the hardware. I picked half-strap hinges and a simple hasp that were modern approximations to historical hardware. For ease of use and care, I chose a modern stain and polyurethane finish.

The final chest is incredibly sturdy and easily held multiple adults. I think it also came out beautiful. I learned a lot about the challenges of working with red oak during this process such as how hard it is and how much the grain soaks up stain. I used a mixture of modern and historical construction methods for this chest and I look forward to experimenting more in the future with more hand tools.