The Cedar Chest

Oooh…that smell!

What is it?

Cedar is known for its scent, insect repellent properties, and its ability to absorb odors. It is often used for closets and clothing storage furniture. It is very often used to make chests like this one. What started out as 12’ (~4m) cedar boards in a cull pile at the local big blue hardware store, full of warps and twists, became this chest. It will lovingly store linens and things for years to come.

What did we learn?

Box joints, box joints, box joints! We’ve used them on many projects so far. This was the first done with a box joint jig we were gifted and a dado stack. Cedar is not a hard wood, and we looked at ways to build this chest out of 100% cedar. The box joints not only create strong corner joints, but we have read in our studies that it can also help with keeping boards straight. Yeah…sounded strange to us to, but if you are a woodworking expert and would like to give us more 411 on that, we’d appreciate it! For now, the chest is square and strong.

We’ve used a lot of finishes on different projects, but this is the first time we used shellac. Shellac is now a permanent addition to our finishing portfolio. It does take a good number of layers to fully cover the thirsty cedar. The shellac filled the finer grains, but it allowed the larger swales and knots of the cedar to come through on the texture which was nice, as well as unique.

In Closing…

While there are some things we would do differently building out of cedar, but it is such a beautiful wood with a great aroma. Like we’ve said with other projects and about other species, they all have something unique about them. We love working with them and discovering those little gems God has placed beneath the bark.