Traditional Tansu, Part 1: The case

Tansu have long fascinated me. In fact, a tansu in an antique shop window contributed greatly to my taking up serious woodworking. Something about all of those drawers and doors spoke to me, not only of function but of potential. Like the pages of a brand new sketchbook, it’s not the empty drawers that make a tansu compelling, but what you might fill them with. The particular tansu that inspired this build is called a ko-dansu, or personal storage chest. What all of the drawers were intended for I have no idea, but the proportions and layout appealed to me. While the original was built from kiri (paulownia), I’ll be building this one from Port Orford cedar. Enough talk, let’s build a tansu!

Finger joints

The carcases of box-style tansu like this one (as opposed to frame-and-panel style) are commonly constructed using wide, pinned finger joints, and almost always have five fingers…