Complete chest in it's place.  The lightign isn't great and it looks a bit greyer than actual.  There is a coat of barn red milk paint under the acrylic paint so that as it ages, the red will poke through and give a nice aged look.  This helps you not be upset when your toddler bangs things on it and damages the topcoat; it just gets it to that nice aged look faster.

Open view.

With blankets removed.  The interior is unifinished - just sanded at 220.

The stay strap is made of tooling leather and attached with upholstery tacks that I pulled off an ottoman in the trash.  Notice how the part on the lid is a could inches in from the side - this ensures that it bends inwards and doesn't get caught between the chest and the lid.

I sized the battens to have just a bit of clearance (about 1/16 total between them) but did not account for the thickness of the paint.  Oh well.

Here's the lide in that spot.

The Anarchist's Design Book or the free draf pdf of that chapter available on the LAP blog or the abridged chapter that was an article in Pop Wood #207 do a good job walking through how to build this, so I will focus on things I think they left out.  ADB is definatley written for a more experienced amature who can fill in details.  It's written as a skelleton for the base forms to then take and apply, not as straight plans.

here is surfacing the lumber; this is a great example of the flexibility afforded by hand tools.  Few power tool woodworkers are equiped to handle 17" wide board.  With hand tools, surfacing a 17" wide board is no different than surfacing an 8" wide board.

ADB dives right into joinery, but first you need to fully mill the 4 sides so that you know how thick your panels will be and then size the joinery accordingly.  My boards were ptty well behaved so I was able to keep them at 7/8".  3/4" would be plenty strong for this application, but there's no reason to waste time cutting that much wood off if it is flat at 7/8".

There was a random black streak in a board, which turned out to be from a bullet.

Joinery in the ends.  It is easier to make these cuts and sucbsequent cleanup squar if you gang cut the two ends.

Recesses and feet cut in ends.

Housing for the bottom.

Make sure you mock up nailed joints.  My first two tries for the forged nails split; I had a good idea of what to do after that and didn't mockup a third try.  No splits occured on the chest.  The clout nail was right on the first try.

Nailing the carcass together.  No glue was used - just nails.  I meant to use glue for the bottom, but got carried away.  The nails are stronger anyhow.  The back is held on with clout nails because they are the cheapest headed nails and won't be seen.

All nailed up.  The front has forged iron nails above the moulding because they will be visible and look the best.  The bottom nail is a clout nail because it will be hidden by the moulding and has a thinner head, which makes it easier to sink flush.  On the front and sides, the bottom is secured with fine finish nails since they are designed to be sunk and will be covered by the moulding.  All loading on the bottom nails is in shear, so a head wouldn't do much.  On the back, the bottom is secured with clout nails because why not have a head if it won't be visible anyhow.

While awkward, it is posible to stick 7ft of moulding on a 4 ft bench.  I used a 3/8" square ovolo (fileted quarter round) moulding plane.

The moulding is affixed with three 4d fine finish nails on each piece as well as glue (first 1/3 only on the returns) clamps helped close the gaps that the nails didn't pull tight.

The hinges are where ADB really lacks instruction.  I used the Lee Valley "B" uneven strap hinges.  It turns out that a bend right in the middle of the first two holes is perfect for 7/8" thick material.  Mark across with a pencil on the inside of the bend.  The bottom leaf wasn't perfectly square with the top leaf so I gauged against the top leaf while marking the bottom leaf.

You need at least a 4" metal working vise; 6" would make it easier, but it was way too big for the little metal working I do.  You could make the bend with a hammer, but the Veritas Metal Bender makes the bend way easier and cleaner.  The total for these two tools was ~$80; with the two hinges the total was $100 and I got two tools out of it.  Compared to the $200/pair belt chest hinges at Horton Brasses, it was a good deal.

The 4" vise is a bit small and applies the force unevenly, resulting in a tight bend on the inside and a larger radius bend on the outside, making the bottom bent.

It's tought to see, but you can make out the difference in curvature.

Fix the uneven curvature by bending the hinge again on the other side of the vise.

Check for square, fix on the anvil with a hammer.

Here's what the inital bend looks like in progress.

The batems are held to the top with clenched nails.  Here is the mockup which was the first time I had clenched nails. I used Rivierre 8d nails.  The first try, I just heated the end of the nail with a blowtorch to soften it; that wasn't enough and you can see that the tip didn't make the turn against the steel plate.  The second one I ground down the last ~3/4" on the gringer to thin it and soften it.  I ground only one side and made that side be the one side be in the direciton of the turn.

On the bottom of the mockup, you can see the first nail stopped.  The secon nail was perfect.  The strength of the clenched nail is amasing; its impossible to wrench these apart.

Attaching the hinges on the lid first.

Hinge mortises set.

A saw bench is an excellent help for attaching the hinges to the chest.

The first 3 clenched nails came out really well.

A well clenched nail is almost invisible on the backside.

The last 3 clenched nails didn't go so smoothly.

A poorly clenched nail is not so invisible.

Since some people like this shot, here's the lumber pile before starting.  This chest was made from 2 17" x12' boards with a bunch of extra and one strip off another board for the moulding.

I haven't shared my new shop since moving out of the apartment shop; it's much better, but I made the old one work.

The main area.