Viking chest: my take

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vestlenning

Settler
Feb 12, 2015
717
76
Western Norway
After seeing Wayland's beautiful chest I got inspired and made my own. 18 mm glued pine boards, steel nails epoxied in place and two coats of stain. Measurements: 29 x 29 x 58 cm, 5 cm legs. On the front I carved my name in runes (Younger Futhark) and painted them black. No hinges, but I plan to make some arrangement to keep the lid in place.

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Thank you for looking.
 
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Having seen Waylands chest ( not his actual chest I hasten to add!!) it is indeed a beautiful thing.
Yours has a simplicity I like with equal enthusiasm but as I say for its utilitarian simplicity. well done .
 
That is a real nice chest you have created. Clean and honest. It's inspired me to look through some of my stored/recycled wood pile. I can see a opertunity to recycle some old brown furniture that's on local eBay or charity shops. Maybe family hand me down, oak dressing table. Turn it into a wonderful chest to store my kit in. Anyway I digress, a good excuse to be out in the workshop, thanks for sharing.
 
Very nice indeed. Would be nice to have something like that to keep everything together in one place, rather than all over the shop as mine is now!
 
Nice job. You can never have too many boxes in my opinion. :)

As well as storage, they also make excellent seating around the campfire.

I prefer a lift off lid to hinges as you can use it as a table surface but still get at the stuff inside without having to move everything off the top.

My lids usually have batons fixed across the ends to fit into the box and stop it sliding about when the lid is on. I'll try and sort a picture out for you later.
 
Thank you for your kind words, sirs!

Here you can see the lid upside down.

The length and position of the batons fit just inside the ends of the box with just a smidge of wriggle room.

The batons (well seasoned and grain at right angle to the lid) also help prevent the lid from warping.

That's a simple and solid solution, thank you.
 
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Nice job. You can never have too many boxes in my opinion. :)

As well as storage, they also make excellent seating around the campfire.

I prefer a lift off lid to hinges as you can use it as a table surface but still get at the stuff inside without having to move everything off the top.

My lids usually have batons fixed across the ends to fit into the box and stop it sliding about when the lid is on. I'll try and sort a picture out for you later.

I don't know if you remember the grain kist that they made for Ruth in Secrets Of The Castle? I liked that a lot, the lid could be turned upside down and used as a bread kneading bowl. Something like that could be scaled down to be portable.

Really liking both boxes so far, handy things to have and beautiful to look at. Cracking work gents.

Sent via smoke-signal from a woodland in Scotland.
 
Don't know if the accounts are apocryphal but I like the tales of the local baker sleeping on his dough trough lid after mixing so that as it rose the lid would rise an off the baker would topple refreshed and the dough had risen enough. As I say maybe utter Hans Anderson but a good tale.
Do you know if the Nordic folks tended to have communal ovens like we did? Not visited it yet but seemingly a couple of villages away they still have their communal one though sadly no longer used.

Sent via smoke-signal from a woodland in Scotland.
 

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