Wedding chest

I recently stumbled upon the wedding chest I created more than 26 years ago. We divorced five years ago and the chest had been standing ourdoors for a long period and was rusty and in a bad shape but one of our daughters wanted the chest so I collected it from my ex-wife and before I delivered it I took a few photograps and used some furniture wax to clean it up a bit.

In January 1997 I got married. Two days prior to the wedding I realized I'd like to gift my wife a wedding chest. I got down to the basement and found some stuff to start creating a chest from. We were very poor so I had to make do with the stuff I found laying around.

I had no drawing or plan, and this was before Internet so my vague idea of a wedding chest was inspired by the pirate chests I'd seen in the comics from my youth. This made all angles tricky since no angle in the chest is 90 degrees, but eventually it became alright.

The result was a crude chest but with a few thought through details, like the lid resting on a frame leaning outward for guiding the lid to center while keeping any rain from pouring in to the chest or the feet of the chest to lift it from any wet ground.

The iron reinforcements in the corners partly was there to hold the chest together, but also for a more piratery feel to it.

The thing taking the most time was waiting for the glue to dry on the lid.

Things I should do differently now, 26 years later

• Not using boards with veneer, but afford solid wood for the chest
• Pay more attention to the details - spending more time with the finish of the metal corners, setting the hinges
• Use other joining methods