Attached are two smallish photos of a friend’s recent acquisition, said to be a sea captain’s chest or wardrobe. Carved into the top is the date “1856.” The story he was told is that this was a built-in on an English merchant ship. Later, when is unknown, it was removed. There is no bottom, and the back was added later, just pine beaded board. He has asked me to build a bottom, and replace the back. He will install a flat screen TV in it, and it will live in the master bedroom. It is 6′ wide, 15″ deep; and about 6.5′ high.
Question: Any idea what the wood is?
My current thinking is that for the bottom, I will build a plinth base of 5/4 or 6/4 stock, M&T, possibly a bit larger than the base, and if so transition it with a smallish base molding, and then 6 square feet, abut 1.5″ high or so. I will add a structural back of cabinet ply. At present, the sides sit on the floor; there is no back bottom piece, and the front bottom is about 1″ x 1″. Pretty cool looking piece, all in all, and I am charged with making it look like something it never was, without changing the essential character. Fun project, and not a ton of work.
Any help would be appreciated. THanks.
Replies
Need a close up of the wood showing grain before any of us can make a reasonable guess, s4s. At first glance I'd say mahogany but only because I can't see any grain from that far back. A pic of a clear section and a pic of one of the carvings, both as close up as you can make it, would be a help.
Kell
Here is the best I can do off of the existing photos. Thanks for the heads up. If these won't do, I will ask my friend to reshoot a closeup.
EDIT: For some reason, there is a lot of blank space around the pix, but they are there.
Edited 5/20/2003 10:53:17 AM ET by s4s
Could use a little closer shot to get a closer look at the grain. In the first photo though, the wood on the left stile looks like mahogany to me. But the middle rail looks like something else; I've never seen mahogany that looks like that with those wide stripes in the grain. If it's as old as you've been told and it came off a ship, mahogany would be a good guess. Very common seafaring wood.
The second pic isn't detailed enough, at least on my monitor, to see any grain. Maybe you can get Jon Arno to weigh in.
Sorry I couldn't be more helpful. By the way, it is a cool project and would be a great piece of furniture to own. I love stuff with a story that I didn't have to make up. :-)
Kell
Edited 5/20/2003 2:15:08 PM ET by Kell
Kell, I can't tell from the photos either. Not close in enough and too much glare.
Edited 5/20/2003 2:34:14 PM ET by Jon Arno
European beech most likely for the frame work, and the upper panel with the wheel thing-- what's it called(?) looks suspiciously like elm. Slainte.
Website The poster formerly known as Sgian Dubh
Richard, I'm truly impressed with your eyesight on this one. Were you one of those bomber spotters during the Blitz?
Ha, ha, Jon. Intuition more than anything. The framing looked a bit plain, and brown, and I'm told it's about 150 years old, and British too? A typical framing timber in Britain is beech-- as it has been for a long time. Lots of dolled up 'walnut' furniture is beech framing with a walnut veneer-- the same applies to mahogany, etc.. As ever, those exotics are, and were, expensive, and beech in GB is all over you like a bad dose of the pox-- a bit like poplar in the US.
Beech has also been used for yonks as the cheap timber which was later dyed, stained, and generally screwed about with to fake every other species, including cherry, mahogany, walnut, etc.. And what cheap old wood would a sailor have kicking about a boat that he could piddle about with-- I'm not saying a sailor built the thing, but it seems possible. Many sailors were apprenticed in other trades starting at maybe 10 or 12 years old prior to becoming sailors, and man management has always been important. Not only that, but carpenter/joiner types were a necessary member of the crew on wooden boats.
Granted, beech is not renowned for its marine use durability but it's always found its uses on boats--- and did I mention that it's cheap, ha, ha.
The elm guess for the upper panel? The wide annular growth rings gave me a hint. English elm-- twisted, interlocked grain, a bit of a bitch to work, but as tough as old boots used in the right place-- weel(sic) until the wee beetle got at it 30 plus years back and decimated the hedgerows and woods, etc.. It's got a history of being used in marine situations, and both species are native to Britain.
I came up with a sort of educated guess. Both timbers might be hanging about a wooden ship for the purpose of repairs, and perhaps available to potentially mutinous sailors in an effort to make them less mutinous, ha, ha-- and the built in cabinet seems like something the captain might get an underemployed ships joiner to work on during quiet moments. Slainte.
Website The poster formerly known as Sgian Dubh
Edited 5/21/2003 11:29:49 PM ET by RichardJ
Well explained, Richard...Just a supporting piece of trivia, but elm was an important species in the days of wooden ships. In fact it was viewed as a strategic commodity by most of the world's navies. Because it can withstand a tremendous amount of shock without fracturing across the grain, it was used for ribbing. In other words, its extreme shock resistance was of higher priority than the disadvantage of its extremely poor decay resistance. Doubtless, a thoughtful captain would have kept some on board for emergency repairs.
This is to both you, Jon, and also to Richard.
Am I impressed? Let me count the ways. Wow! I never would have guessed either wood, but it does look like two different woods. I was wondering about English Walnut for the grainy wood. I understand it is lighter in color than Am. Black Walnut. Was also thinking about English Oak, just based on the history of the piece. The smoother wood I had no idea at. I will look more closely at the piece with your comments in mind. Beech has a sort of darker fleck in it, to my eye, and this I did not notice, but perhaps the wood has been stained so that this is hard or impossible to pick up. I think the elm is probably "spot on" (did I get that right, Richard?). Both woods are easily available to me.
Edited 5/22/2003 10:19:28 AM ET by s4s
s4s, just some tips on what to look for. The ray flecks in beech are typically darker and much smaller (shorter) than in the oaks. Also, all of the temperate oaks are ring-porous woods, while beech is diffuse-porous.
The rays in elm are virtually invisible. If there is any exposed end grain, examine it with a 10X hand lens. Elm produces continuous bands of tangential pores that show up as fine, wavy, light colored lines on the end grain. On the flat sawn surface, this anatomical structure yields a very attractive "partridge feather" figure in the latewood tissue between the annual rings, which usually show as a single, continuous row of rather large pores . In most of the oaks (especially white oak) the pores form more or less radial chains...sort of like champagne bubbles rising out radially from the pith toward the bark.
As for English walnut, its figure is almost identical to that of our black walnut, although sometimes it is slightly finer textured. It's aged patina is sort of an amber-tan color...but if it's buried under several centuries of finish, color isn't much of a clue.
The fact that you mentioned not noticing ray flecks in the primary (blander) of the two species, leaves open the possibility that it might be maple...which is also a relatively common English cabinet wood. They call it "sycamore", but that's just one more example of how the Brits have mangled our language. :o)
Sycamore (Acer pseudoplatanus) [plane] is another possibility that crossed my mind, Jon, but I plumped for beech. Sycamore, compared to european beech, is often something of a 'superior' wood, with premium uses, such as fiddle backs, and so on, whereas european beech, although often coveted, is generally much less prized. But you are right. It could be sycamore.
I wasn't aware that we managed to mangle our language. Darned colonists!! They can't even make a nice cup of hot tea with the requisite boiling water without soaking it first in salt water in Boston Harbour, so what can we expect from such uncultured heathens? Slainte. Website The poster formerly known as Sgian Dubh
I thought that framework looked like "fruitwood" to me. I don't know what specie(s) that designation refers to but I have seen it a lot in furniture pieces. I can't tell much from the pictures but it seems a bit too bland for beech to me. Can you enlighten me Jon as to the proper name(s) for the ubiquitous "fruitwood"?
Clay, with the exception of our native cherry (Prunus serotina) American wood workers have never paid much attention to the fruitwoods. This is not the case in Europe. They have a long tradition in using these woods.
The term "fruitwood" is rather vague, but it usually refers to the fruit bearing species of several genera in the Rose family (Rosaceae.) This would include the cherries, apples (mountain ash, hawthorn, serviceberry), pear, plums and peach/almond. Southern European woodworkers also make use of olive and to some extent a few of the citrus woods, althought the latter is not native to Europe...but neither olive or citrus typically get lumped into the category of fruitwoods.
Richard,
Excellent detective work. Your knowledge of this sort of thing is astounding. I raise my glass.
Kell
Thanks, Kell. Don't forget though that it was a guess, and required a fair bit of lateral thinking-- fairly normal for me I suppose-- even without ingesting chemical mind enhancing aids, ha, ha. I could be completely wrong on both of the wood types I suggested. Slainte.Website The poster formerly known as Sgian Dubh
This forum post is now archived. Commenting has been disabled