Here is a High Chest of Drawers (Highboy)I built. The original was built in 1748 by Christopher Townsend in Newport, R.I. It is made of Cherry with Maple as secondary wood. It took about 300 hours to build. All joinery is either mortise and tenon or dovetails. I worked hard to avoid any nails or screw, but the back it held in place with nails. All wood started out as rough lumber and I milled all wood myself. Moldings are of my own design, but based on the original. Brasses are from Horton Brasses. Drawers are all wood-on-wood with no glides, per original. I made a little tiger maple foot stool to get to the top drawers. All escutcheons have working locks.
Estimated Cost
$1100.00 plus $300.00 for the brasses
Estimated Time Investment
Week Long Project (20 Hours or More)
Finish Used
Minwax Antique Oil Finish, paste wax.
Recommended Skill Level
Advanced
Comments
bhoppy
Thu, 11/03/2011 - 19:30
seriously?
You made this?? I'm in Awe! Its stunningly beautiful!
margjack
Mon, 11/07/2011 - 14:55
Beautiful!
You are extremely talented! (And I bet you have fabulous tools!) I am jealous!
[email protected]
Mon, 11/07/2011 - 15:15
Thank you, it was a tad of work!
Thanks for the compliments. Yes, I did make it wholly by hand. All it was was a series of smaller tasks, just a whole bunch of them.
I has slowly accumulated most of the tools required. I have a jointer, router table, planer, band saw, table saw and a hollow chisel mortiser.
The cherry is getting richer over time, so it actually is getting better with age. I really like 18th American furniture. I prefer to work with Cherry, Walnut, and Tiger Maple. All rough wood only, no milled boards of any kind.