The Trunk

I know - I should always take before photos. But sometimes, I'm all in a rush, or I think the object mundane.

Wrong again.

It was in a fairly decrepit condition and the guidelines of the treatment were narrow.

• Better - but not perfect
• Attractive - but not expensive
• Functional "as is" - without jumping through too many hoops

So I cleaned all of the exterior surfaces. Removed the miniscule remnants of tooled leather that originally covered the open fields of pine you see here. Cleaned the old japanning from the strapping, and replaced the missing leather handles.


Here you can see the original tooling pattern of the hide. From the indentations it was tooled in place after application.

I love the details on the hardware

A coat of amber shellac on the wood surfaces, yellow tinted shellac on the hardware and bone black pigment on the strapping. The interior I lined with fabric on removable mat board, so that it could be used for storage.



I was gratifyingly surprised at how well it pulled together without going to extremes.

---

  

Remnants of leather

The Maker

---

A little digging on the "internets" yielded a small amount of information on the maker.

Who's who in Chicago 1905
The book of Chicagoan s
John William Leonard, author 

Wilt, Charles T., manufacturer; born St Louis, Mo., Nov. 22, 1859;.
Son of Charles T (Sr ) and Emerette A. (Babcock) Wilt; came to Chicago in childhood
 
Education. Ogden, Newberry and Lincoln schools, graduating from latter

Married Chicago, July 31, 1888 to Charlotte D Fairbairn;
Children: Charles T., Jr., Collin D. Robert Lloyd Wheaton, Elmer Ellsworth.

In 1878 entered business (founded by his father, 1862)of Charles T. Wilt, manufacturer in trunks traveling bags, etc.; is now head of firm, which is still conducted as Charles T. Wilt.

Republican. Captain. 1st 111. Voluntary Infantry, served through Santiago campaign of Spanish-American War. Member of the Veteran Corps, 1st Regiment

Board of Directors NEW ILLINOIS ATHLETIC CLUB. 112 S. MICHIGAN AVENUE.

The 300 Dollar Pencil Sharpener

Always up for a challenge, I said sure! I can rebuild your rustic king size log bed to actually fit the mattress and box spring.

The bed had been made years ago for the customer by a high school shop class. Overall it was quite nicely executed. Sturdy and well fitted it was however 7 inches too wide and 4 inches too long.

I only needed to re-size eight stretchers and reshape sixteen tenons. And while I have a lot of tools - I did not own a log tenoning bit. After a fair amount of research I settled on an adjustable bit to eliminate having to re-drill all of the mortices.

When it arrived my first impression confirmed the queasy feeling in my stomach. The idea of spinning an irregular shaped 5" aluminum cutter head in a 1/2" handheld drill, filled my head with all sorts of unwanted outcomes.

The first attempt knocked the clamps loose and pulled the 80" log off the bench spinning on the end of my drill.

 Live and learn!

I cut cradles from some 2x4's and started over.

Safely clamped to the bench the rest was noisy - and felt like jack-hammering concrete -  but the result were perfect.

So now that I own a log rail tenon cutter
 - who need fencing?