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Sea Chests, plans from Gary Larkins, WA

comments (2) January 13th, 2009 in Reader's Gallery

rkinsm03 rkinsm03, member
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I have built 4 sea chests approximately to drawings I purchased from Gary Larkins in Washington State.  I dont get into the shop as much as Id like, sometimes because of the weather in New England, other times because of my day job.  44 angled pins and tails makes for a good bit of work.
Most were given away as gifts; this one to my future father in law for his 60th.  The plaque is a historic sea chanty called The Mermaid, the chest is pine with teak becket cleats and lid cleats.
The last chest went to a fellow in MA who wanted it left unfinished so that he could detail beckets and paint (traditional) the finished chest.  Hopefully it will serve his purposes well!
Heres a cleaner photo of the inside of the chest.  Finish is water based stain followed by several coats of thined Epiphanes varnish.  Being an active sailor myself, Im pretty comfortable with varnish.  This one ended up as a Christmas present for my dad.
I have built 4 sea chests approximately to drawings I purchased from Gary Larkins in Washington State.  I dont get into the shop as much as Id like, sometimes because of the weather in New England, other times because of my day job.  44 angled pins and tails makes for a good bit of work. - CLICK TO ENLARGE

I have built 4 sea chests approximately to drawings I purchased from Gary Larkins in Washington State.  I don't get into the shop as much as I'd like, sometimes because of the weather in New England, other times because of my day job.  44 angled pins and tails makes for a good bit of work.
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I stumbled across an issue of Wooden Boat magazine that had Gary Larkins' write-up of his experience drawing and building the sea chest, and figured it would be a pretty great first or fourth project to really dive into using hand tools and techniques.  While a period sailor would probably build a chest from one wide remaindered board, I settled for big box pine to keep the costs down.  Fitting 11 pins across at one time is tedious, to say the least.


Design or Plan used: Gary Larkins
posted in: Reader's Gallery, period interpretation, dovetails, pine, chest, varnish
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Comments (2)

boatcrazy boatcrazy writes: Can someone tell which issue of wooden boat the sea chest plans is in ?

Thank you,
Posted: 6:12 pm on November 17th

katethefinn katethefinn writes: Amazing!

My mother has a similar chest here in Finland. It has belonged to her great grandfather.

Kataria
Posted: 8:13 am on January 31st

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