On Thu, 17 Sep 2015 22:43:12 -0400, woodchucker
wrote:

http://imgur.com/a/xBqX0

I got a chest from a friend who was moving. It was all nailed and
screwed together. They were covered mostly by other boards on the
corners nailed on.
So he drops it off figuring I can use the wood as he doesn't want to
take it.
It was cracked in multiple areas.

I tore it apart 2 or 3 years ago and it's been sitting in the shop.

My son needed a coffee table, and since his apartment is really small, I
figured a cedar chest would serve double purpose.
But since he drinks like a fish (out of college a year and still drinks
like he is in college) I needed to make sure that a spilled drink didn't
run into the chest or ruin the finish. Most of you know my love for
shellac. So I shellaced it, but had to protect the shellac. I coated it
with lacquer as a final 2 coats. Am just waiting for it to harden up to
rub it out. I haven't used lacquer in a long time, and I'm loving the
choice over poly. It just looks better, dries quickly, and I know it
will rub out easily and look great.

There is a groove routed with a core box bit around the bottom edge, so
if the drink spills it won't follow the top around and go into the
chest. I thought that was a cool idea.

The wood was not a very nice cedar. I think it was Spanish. I had to add
my own cedar for the skirt as the old one was not very nice, and had
many screw holes filled with putty on top of the screws. My own cedar is
eastern red. So it was not a great match. A little bright red dye in the
shellac helped bring the Spanish cedar closer. Not exact, not perfect,
but it helped to soften the difference.
Also waiting on rockler for some chest hinges (torsion type).
I don't think they will be here on time, as I am going to visit him this
Saturday for a lobster fest,... a neat day where the lobster is huge,
the corn is great, and lots of beer and wine flow.

So I'm torn between keeping it a few more weeks, or bringing it up now.

Anyway, hand cut dovetails, pinned maple using walnut pegs (made using
a home made dowel plate).

Looked great to me, looked like 1 inch cedar from the size of the
joints.

PS: on stripping down the Stool once again, and we has some real high
humidity here, 85-90 Deg F 86+% humidity, I had to strip it carefully
of plug up the sandpaper fast, whether by hand or orbital. So I did a
little bit every other day. Sometimes getting what looked like buggers
in the shellac. Come to find out those were areas where the shellac
gasified determined when I started sanding at night, and could see the
formation of bubbles in the shellac, and when those areas were sanded
the "buggers" appeared.

Finally ended up going to bare wood once again. Then sealed it, waited
24 hrs and re stained it. left it again for 24 hrs but the temp and
hum stayed high so I let her slide for a while and through some temp
cabinets together for the kitchen.

I am about to start coating the stool again, with shellac, but will go
slow and easy. Waiting for it to "cure" some before the next coat.
From all the instruction I received here, and seeing the effects of
what I did while I was stripping the stool I have learned a lot, and
am grateful for all the finishing guidelines. Your comment on the
"soft shellac" brought this up to my memory.