I decided to finally make a coffee chest to store my green coffee beans. It needs to hold up to 30 pounds of beans, about 6 months supply and it must odorless.

And it must be visually appealing. Unless you are Oscar Wilde...“We can forgive a man for making a useful thing as long as he does not admire it. The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely. All art is useless."

I have some pear wood from a tree I cut down long ago. It has no noticeable odor and since it is air dried it planes nicely.

And little scraping and the surface is super smooth!

As I don't have enough pear, I chose this nice piece of mahogany for the legs. Hopefully it will make a good color match.

A boards cut fair and square...I think the color look great!

16 mortises and 16 tenons...that some crazy cuttin' and choppin' ....

I'll do a dry fit and decide on a panel design. I also need to think about the lid...strong enough to use as a seat? Some wood hinges?

July 16, 2015 Update

I was able to, with a bit of trimming here and there, get a good fit of all the joints.

A couple of rough measurements and I cut some maple stock for the four side panels. It took a while to get the book match correct, but I think they came out ok. The color is good match to the pear as well.

And the big picture....

A friend ask me if I could make a pair of display cases. They were needed for a birthday gift. I had one nice piece of African Mahogany that I knew would look good.

I drew a full scale model with some paper cutouts to represent the items going in the case. After planing and cutting out the side frames, I mortised for some glass panels.

I decided to use glass for the side panels to let in some additional light. The glass is from Kokomo Opalescent Glass, where they mix art glass by hand.

With the glass fitted up and allowed a bit of float...the frames were glued and clamped.

Continuing on...

Back panels in place...

A final glue up...

An there it is! (the horses are not full scale)

I "came across" this Linden stump today and decided to recycle. Enough for 4 2"x2" legs and 6 planks. Maybe a lightweight bench to keep in the van?

Tea Cabinet

I made this tea cabinet (H 18.75in. x W 11in. x D 8in.) about a year ago but never, for whatever reason, never put hinges.

H 18.75in. x W 11in. x D 8in I purchased some brass knife hinges which are the best way to hang a cabinet door. Here it goes....

July 14, 2015 I fitted the hinges and the function is ok...I need to adjust the top just a skosh.

And a rear view...

A front view of a tall cabinet I made from Freijo (Laurel Blanco or Jennywood). The door panel is book matched oak. I gave it a hand applied amber shellac finish. Size h x w x d cm.