Sea chest

This is the completed sea chest. The rope handles, dovetails, and bread board ends  are all hand cut and fitted.









The rope is cut about 43" long, separated into the three strands.

 The rope will make three of the handles. It is 5/8" manilla rope.

 The approximate size is the size of a glue bottle. This is just a little fussy to get the correct diameter of 5 1/4".

 The handle is drilled at 7/8" and then cut open. The inside is cut out to make room for the splice of the rope.

 Rope is cheap and I thought that I would make extra because I like the handle so well.

 After the rope is re-weaved and glued together, it is wrapped in glue soaked canvas, dipped in diluted glue solution to make the rope maintain its shape. This a a shot of the handles drying.

 This is a shot of the hand cut dovetails.

I used a jig saw to cut out the majority of the cloud lift and the router and the template to cut the cloud lift to smooth shape.






This last shot is of the chest with the door open. You can also see the bread board ends. The ends are held with draw bored holes to keep the edge of the bread board long edge and the top tight.