Mango Wood and Iron Storage Trunk

Details

A storage trunk in solid mango, Mangifera indica, from the Jodhpur trade, with dovetailed corners and riveted mild steel strapping. A trunk is judged on its corners and its hardware and both are the first things cheapened. The corner is usually a butt joint with glue and pins, hidden under a decorative steel bracket, and it opens the first time the trunk is dragged across a floor when loaded. The hardware is usually screwed rather than riveted, into end grain, where screws pull out; and the strap is painted rather than primed, so it rusts from underneath and lifts the paint within two monsoons. The material cheat is the usual one: a mango-veneered MDF box with iron-look plastic corners weighs a third as much and reads identically in a photograph.

• Solid mango boards throughout at 20 mm, tongue and groove jointed, no MDF and no veneer
• Dovetailed corners at all four, not butt joints hidden under a bracket
• Straps in 2 mm mild steel, riveted through, over a zinc-phosphate primer and then powder-coated, because rust starts under the coating and not on it
• Full-length steel hinge along the back, screwed into face grain rather than end grain
• Friction stay on the lid, so it cannot drop shut on fingers
• Lid rated 100 kg static, which is what you need for a trunk used as a bench or a low table
• Kiln-dried to 8 to 10 percent under IS 287, waterborne polyurethane inside and out, VOC under 50 g per litre, IS 9873 Part 3 migration tested
• No camphor, no naphthalene and no scented lining, so stored textiles do not come out smelling of it
• Solid timber plus steel is heavy: about 22 kg empty at 75 cm and 30 kg at 90 cm. Two people to move it when loaded. The straps are powder-coated steel and will rust if the trunk stands in standing water.