The Creation of a Turret Clock

A lot of sawdust...

  The worst part of living in Florida is what it does to my tools.  For this project, I wanted to focus on the blacksmithing.  For the woodworking, I'm using my table saw, band saw, etc...  Although I do also use a fair amount of hand tools such as chisels, coping saw, draw knife and more.  Even though I use a rust protecting clear coat on the tools, the humidity in the garage is always high so the first thing I had to do was clean for about an hour all of the surfaces that would contact the wood.  Still, was nice to do some woodworking.  I haven't done much in a while so the smell of sawdust was a nice change of pace.

  Anyway, I picked up lumber this morning.  Unfortunately, I had difficulty locating white oak for the project so I am using red oak.  Pretty much the same properties of the white oak just has a bit of a red tinge(imaging that...)  Also, I wasn't able to find lumber thick enough for the lid so I had to buy enough lumber to glue two pieces together for the lid.  I did that first to let the glue setup.

  The first real cutting was for the ends of the chest.  The Mastermyr chest's unique shape makes the woodworking a little challenging.  The chest's sides all slant inward so there are some funky angles.  I cut the ends of the chest and the front and back.  At that point, I couldn't resist it, I went ahead and cut the hole for the lock plate.  It was the first time the lock plate was actually on a piece of wood.  It gave me a good idea of how the chest will look and I must saw that I like the look.  I left some excess wood on the front of the chest.  Its a lot easier to cut away wood then add it back in.

  After cutting the basic shapes of the pieces, I needed to do some chisel work for the ends of the chest.  I was cutting a mortise in the ends that will support the bottom of the chest.  This is the first time I've done mortise work in wood since I started blacksmithing.  The years of learning blacksmithing benefited me.  I was able to do the mortise very quickly with just a chisel and mallet.  My hand/eye coordination is much better and I was able to go for several hours with no problems.

  So, at the end of the day the ends and front and back of the chest are nearly complete.  The only bit left on them is a small amount of cleanup.  The bottom has been planed down to the proper thickness and I should be able to do that in about an hour tomorrow.  My only concern is the lid.  When I was cleaning up shop, I noticed the two pieces I used for the lid did not glue together properly.  I may have to go get more lumber to try the lid again.  Still, I should be done with the woodworking tomorrow.