October 23, 200817 yr I wanna see your own chest that you made or other's chests that they made, I got some cool ones off of BlacksmithGuildofVA.com Mike, or peyton, if you do not want me to post these on here, send me a PM and I'll take the images down. BTW, can yuo actually make padlocks for chests??? I mean I'm sure you can, but do you order them from a locksmith or.....
October 23, 200817 yr The two trunks were for a client that wanted "independence" trunks for his grand kids - he filled them with all sorts o' stuff a young person needs to get started in their first place. (The lock is a commercially made one) The garden boxes and tools are part of my outdoor line.
October 23, 200817 yr If I show you my chest, you would have to see my stomach too! and the camera lense may not be wide enough!!
October 23, 200817 yr Nah it is cool. Those boxes are Doug Merkels boxes. One is a BAM box, and the other is one he either made or did the iron work on. I do not remember. He had everything at our ABANA Appreciation Event in them. Here is a link to those photos and others:Blacksmith Guild of Viriginia - Gallery Scroll down to "ABANA Appreciation Event 2008" pgs 1-5 Peyton
October 23, 200817 yr I made a Mastermyr chest for my medieval smithing tools: found an old oak barn board in a flood pile along the crick. Adzed the surface to clean it up, forged the nails to put it together. Nothing special and looks sort of like the woodwork a smith would do; not as pretty as the original which probably din't start out as a tool chest... Thomas
October 23, 200817 yr If I show you my chest, you would have to see my stomach too! and the camera lense may not be wide enough!! Well Mike, if yours is like mine, your stomach would be so much closer to the lens it wouldn't be in focus anyway. Frosty
October 24, 200817 yr I appreciate all information and examples on decorative tool chests. After I finish my traveling forge, one project would be a decorative tool chest to donate to the local blacksmithing guild/school as a raffle item. One of the biggest challenges in planning the decorative tool chest project is to find nice hardwood that I can afford. Does anyone have a source of affordable decorative woods in the Maryland/Pennsylvania general area? Edited October 24, 200817 yr by UnicornForge
October 24, 200817 yr Look for dunnage wood; it's often free and is often a wide range of hardwoods. I recently re-did a small park bench using oak dunnage boards for slats. You do need the ability to surface the boards as they are generally rough sawn. It's often air dried as well and so is actually better for historical work than kiln dried.
October 24, 200817 yr Very true Thomas. I have seen many pallets made of oak and maple. I know an old blacksmith that makes thousands of iron survey stakes for various customers. Before he switched over to a natural gas forge, he burned oak pallets (he got for free from a neighboring business) instead of coal in his forge to sharpen the points.
October 27, 200817 yr Pallets was going to be my suggestion, if your looking for the reworked wood look pallets will have the nail holes.I have a brother in law who makes his living from turning pallets into things that are sold by another individual at festivals. If your looking for something that is a bit finer and without the distressed look I would start looking for someone with a portable saw mill. I currently have 12 Maple logs on my trailer and some oak in the pasture awaiting a local guys portable saw mill. James
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