Hope chest – grooving the legs

Veritas Plow Planes

Running a groove like this takes under five minutes to make and there is no danger to me or to the work at all. Think about it for a moment. You are making one chest. Two legs have 2 grooves, the other 2 have one. 6 grooves, 5 minutes = 1/2 an hour max. The groove is 3/8″ x 3/8″  by 22″ long, and stopped 4″ from the bottom of the leg directly into the mortise hole. real woodworking begins.

After cutting the mortise holes it was time to cut the grooves in the legs and for this I used the Veritas plough plane (plow US). If you have never used one of these planes you should. This is white oak I am ploughing remember.

 

There’s a method to ploughing with plough planes that guarantees crisp clean walls and exactness. I own a wonderful wooden Marples skate front plough plane with fully adjustable screw stems. It’s featured in one of my next books and it works well too, but the compactness and solidity of the Veritas plough hits the spot.