Mästermyr chest part4 assembling
Eventually it is time to assemble the Mästermyr chest. The pieces are ready and prepared and all the tools needed have been created. When the tools are placed in the chest I think of it as a tool chest… the wood just needs to dry up a bit. I kept the boards uncut as long as possible until the last moment just before they are coated with tar. In the last picture the tar pile/tar ditch is running as a teaser for the next step.
So even if the chest is now a tool chest without the coating it will likely dry up, crack and bend. I think of it as not quite finished until I stabilize the wood. One of the challenges to begin with was to make a tool chest from scratch. Considering the timespan that means working in wet wood. A living tree turned into a chest in one spring means wet wood, less so in the winter but still. Everyone I talked to in my research said this is impossible. Stabilizing the wood using tar however may be a solution to that.
The other concern was more of a philosophical concern. Where does it all begin? If I have nature, metal and a fire/blower what is the beginning? What tools are needed to reach a full circle and how do I close the loop?
You need tools to make tools to make a toolbox. The toolbox is a thing – hand made. It becomes a tool as soon as it is given a function; when tools are placed, stored and carried in it. When all the tools used to make it are carried in it there is harmony… but not if the tool chest do not protect the tools from the elements, not the way I see it anyway. The chest has to be durable, that is one of its purposes, one of its most important functions.
Therefore I have a few more videos to make before more focused short versions of the projects will be uploaded.
The previous videos of chest making are:
Part 1 • Making a Mästermyr chest off-grid part1
Part 2 • Making a Mästermyr chest off-grid part2. A...
Part 3 • Mastermyr chest part3 lid
But then another another 24 videos or so are dedicated to make the tools used to make the chest... all to find a beginning and end to things.