Secrets of the sea chest

As promised in an earlier post, I will show the secrets of the sea chest.

Since the sea chest itself is rather small, 50 cm long, 35 cm wide at the base and a total height of around 30 cm, the drawers are farily small, and the secret drawers are even smaller.
But the most important thing is: They are there for the curious spectator to find.

These are the two regular drawers in place beneath the till.
To give you an idea of the size; each drawer is 9 cm high.

Here, the drawers have been removed granting access to the two locking keys that hold the vertical divider in place.

Now the locking keys have been opened and the vertical divider is pulled out.

The two secret drawers are accessible from behind the vertical divider.

The entire backing plate for the lower drawer is being pulled out. It rests in a narrow dado in the side wall and in the horizontal divider just above it. There is a small secret compartment at the back end of the backing plate.

The entire backing plate for the upper drawer is being pulled out. This one too rests in a dado in the side wall and in the horizontal divider. Like the lower unit, there is also a small compratment at the back end of the backing plate.

This view from above shows the arrangement of the drawers and the secret drawers and the secret compartments.
To the left is the lower set and to the right is the upper set.








The secrets in retro perspective.
I took a little time figuring out how I was going to do this. One of the hardest parts was to accept the fact, that the secret drawers didn't have very much pratical use based on their small sizes.
The actual making of the drawers and compartments took quite some time because I had to process some stock to a small size, and then I had to glue the splitting and wait etc.
I think that I will try to make some more secret comartments or drawers in the future. I would like to do some with a series of locks, both quaker locks and sliding keys. But all in all it has been quite fun to make them and I hope my family will enjoy finding them.