Category Archives: Furniture

Limbert No. 367 Book Case–Construction

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This partial pattern contains all the elements of the case sides without the bulk entailed by a full-sized pattern. It also allows the creation of sides of different heights.

This partial pattern contains all the elements of the case sides without the bulk entailed by a full-sized pattern. It also allows the creation of sides of different heights.

Building the No. 367 is straightforward proposition. Dadoes capture the shelf ends and join the case together while the gallery back helps things square. I made a few modifications to the design, altering the depth from 12″ to 11.25″ to use 1″ x 12″ material, and narrowing the case from 30″ to 24″ since I thought it looked better. I also substituted a shiplapped back for the original’s panel. Having decided on a milk painted finish, I chose pine instead of the fumed white oak used in the original. Continue reading →

Limbert No. 367 Book Case–Design

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Limbert 367 book case

Charles Limbert’s No. 367 book case.

If I were a historian of material culture, I might contemplate the staggering variety of book storage marketed in the early part of the 20th Century and its relationship to an expanding middle class and the rise of mass media. Advancements in printing technology made more books, magazines, and music available to more people, and they could store this material on magazine stands, book racks, book shelves, book cases, etc. Limbert’s Fall 1905 catalogue featured 34 such pieces, from a $4.50 magazine stand to a $54 case with three leaded glass doors. Continue reading →

Limbert No. 238 Tabouret

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Limbert's No. 238 tabourette reproduced in cherry.

Limbert’s No. 238 tabourette reproduced in cherry.

The original version of this side table sold for $7.00 in Limbert’s 1905 catalog. Like other of Limbert’s best pieces, its design transcends the period, making it a bit of chameleon at home with many styles. The original was built of quartersawn white oak with a fumed finish. I chose to build it in cherry following an article from the November 2003 issue of Popular Woodworking.

The project provides a fine introduction to pattern routing since each leg is identical. The article calls for arranging the rabbeted legs in a pinwheel pattern, which makes for an awkward glue up since the parts want to slip when clamped. If I were building another (easy enough to do with the pattern prepared), I might rabbet both sides of each leg to produce a centered tongue, then assemble in stages, beginning with gluing two opposing legs together and finishing by gluing the remaining legs in the grooves formed by the meeting of the opposed tongues.

I began by selecting the best wood (“best” a relative term for the mediocre stock I had on hand) for the top, gluing it up. I then marked out the legs, cut out rough blanks, and used a bearing bit in the router guided by the pattern to cut the legs to final shape. I sanded through 400 grit, taped off the joints, and applied a couple of coats of boiled linseed oil. After glue up, the top was attached using brackets.

More Information

Model in the Sketchup Warehouse

Popular Woodworking’s Arts & Crafts Furniture (Amazon link) collects some of the magazine’s most popular Arts & Crafts projects, including this tabouret.

Michael

April 2, 2013

smallChestTeaserI’ve been contemplating a credenza build almost since we moved in, a place to store office supplies and files, but it hasn’t been a priority. Recently in between projects, I decided on an interim solution for my storage woes. A small chest of drawers sized to fit on one of my magazine stands could serve to hold the odds and ends that haven’t found a home in my office yet and could be repurposed after that happy day in the future when I’ve built that credenza.

A small chest is an interesting project for a number of reasons. The small scale makes it a manageable effort while the joinery involved–drawer and carcase construction, web frames, veneering–can also be used to build larger chests, making it an ideal way to work through the challenges and techniques of chest building before attempting larger pieces. The small scale also provides a chance to use smaller pieces of figured wood. Read more.

Milk Paint

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Milk paint on pine

Milk paint sparks images of shaker oval baskets stacked in muted columns, but there’s more to its charm than vintage appeal. While opaque, it won’t hide the grain of your wood. It’s also relatively durable, although it will spot when exposed to water, and its appearance seems to improve with use, any dings adding a patina of venerability to a project.

Aritcles in Fine Woodworking and Popular Woodworking recommend the use of a natural bristle brush, but you can use a foam roller to apply. I use Old Fashioned Milk Paint, mixing equal parts water and powdered paint to produce only as much as I’ll use in a day or two at the most–let it sit longer and it will go bad–and roll it on without first wetting my projects to raise the grain. After a couple of coats, I’ll hand sand with 220 grit to knock down any raised grain, then apply another coat or two until I get the depth I want.

Milk paint dries flat and chalky. To bring out a little luster and even out the color, I apply a coat of boiled linseed oil and burnish with fine steel wool. The oil will darken the color, sometimes substantially, so to preserve the original hue while adding protection, topcoat with water-based polyurethane. Oil based poly will add a yellow color cast.

Trestle Table–Construction

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Soft maple boards cut to rough length for the top.

Soft maple boards cut to rough length for the top.

Using wide boards minimized glue up, but it also required flattening them by hand. Fortunately
they were in good shape and were ready for glue before too long. While the top dried, I turned my attention to the trestle ends. I began by shaping the patterns for the feet and caps of the trestle ends. Before shaping those parts, though, I cut the mortises for the through tenons using a guide bushing and pattern. I had originally planned on using sliding dovetails to attach the top to the base, but after a couple of disastrous attempts  to rout the dovetails, I decided to use screws instead.

Pattern routing trestle ends.

Pattern routing trestle ends.

The end posts were tenoned and mortised before shaping as well. With the curved tapers cut and smoothed, the ends were ready for glue. With the tenons wedged tight and glue drying I could return my attention to the top. Gently curves add some subtle visual interest to the top. I roguhed these out with a jigsaw, then planed them smooth, but it would have been easier to simply plane the curves on the long edges. As it was, the jig saw wandered a bit in the cut, and I had to use a chamfer along the bottom edge instead of a roundover on the the top and bottom edges.

The stretcher proved too long to tenon on the table saw, so I cut close on the bandsaw and fine tuned the fit by hand. Cutting the angled mortises for the wedges was probably the most difficult aspect of construction, but the wedges add a nice detail as well as allowing the base to be knocked down for transport. I cut the wedges on the bandsaw and fit each one to its mortise, then sanded all parts through 220 grit before applying several coats of orange shellac. Since a dining table is likely to see some abuse as well as exposure to water and alcohol, I topcoated the shellac with polyurethane.

In retrospect, I’m sorry I couldn’t get those sliding dovetails cut. They’re a more elegant solution to attaching the top to the base than screws. And while the shellac warmed the soft maple nicely, I’m curious to see what a little dye in the mix would have yielded.

trestleTable

Trestle Table–Design

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trestleTableSketchI’ve wanted to build a trestle table for some time–the economy of materials and ability to radically alter a design by modifying a few details make it an interesting project–but I didn’t need a new dining table, so I didn’t pursue the project. When some friends moved into a their new house and needed a new table, I jumped at the chance to build a piece.

While I had free reign over the design, I wanted to build something that would make them both happy, a slight challenge since his taste tends to Danish modern and hers to traditional. Checking my library showed a surprising amount of variation in design. Changes to the trestle ends, position of the beam, and slight alterations to the top can make the piece medieval, Shaker, or modern. In the end, I opted to modify a design by Gary Rogowski. The updated Arts & Crafts look would strike a balance between tastes. I preserved the slight curves to the top and the keyed through mortise on the beam, then altered the length and width of the design and changed the shape of the trestle slightly, opting for concave curves in the tapered post and feet. Width and length of the top were determined by the boards available for the top. Final dimensions were 29″ h x 29.5″ w x 78″ l.

More Information

  • Gary Rogowski’s original design from Fine Woodworking #214
  • Kenneth Rower has a very useful article on trestle table design in Fine Woodworking #42.

Magazine Stand–Construction

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modifiedStickley79

A slightly modified Stickley Number 79.

When the time came to replace the utilitarian shelves in my office, I knew I wanted something in the Arts & Crafts style, but the sloping ceiling and short knee walls create some design constraints, and I needed a design that lent itself to production techniques. After checking my library for options, I decided one variation or another of the magazine stand would match my design and construction requirements.

Initially drawn to the trapezoidal forms produced by the Charles Limbert Company, I prototyped a couple. While they add some visual interest, the tapering sides required cutting three different shelves for each stand, complicating construction. After some experimentation, I settled on a modified version of Stickley’s No. 79. This iteration of the form features rectangular sides softened by radiused corners on the top edge, a half-moon cutout to form the handle, and an arch on the bottom edge. A router template would make reproducing the sides relatively easy, and the straight edges of the sides meant that I could cut the shelves without having to change any tool setups.

Detail of the modified Stickley design.

Detail of the modified Stickley design.

I modified the design to better fit the space and my requirements. I reduced the height from 40
inches to 36, lowered the bottom shelf to increase storage capacity, and increased the radius on the top corners. I also added a couple of inches to the width of the shelves and eliminated the toekick. With the design finalized, I prepared a full-sized router template in 3/4″ plywood.

Since I had a lot of shelves to build, I chose #3 pine. It’s readily available in wide boards and economical. The blanks were cut to slightly oversized on the tablesaw, then attached to the template. Had I been placing all the shelves in the same position for each stand, I could have screwed the template into each side so that the shelves would have hidden those screw holes. But I needed to be able to adjust the height of the shelves, so I used double-sided tape to attach the template to the blanks, then roughed out the shape of sides using the jigsaw and trimmed to final dimensions with a flush-cutting bit in the router.

When I can, I like to pre-finish my projects before assembly. It can increase the time spent on finishing, but it simplifies the process. After sanding through 220 grit, I wiped on three or four coats of amber shellac. Once the shellac was dry, I wet sanded with 400 grit. Joinery is simple: two pocket hole screws in the end of each shelf join the stand together.

A knee wall of magazine stands.

A knee wall of magazine stands.

 

Magazine Stand–Background

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346 Magazine Shelf

The cutouts and sloping sides of Limbert’s No. 346 Magazine stand distinguish it from more pedestrian offerings from other makers.

The Morris Chair is often regarded as the epitome of Arts & Crafts furniture, but the same argument can be made for the lowly magazine stand. These small shelves featured in the catalogs of most manufacturers and their low prices made them an easily attainable item for households that otherwise might not have been able to afford a piece of Arts & Crafts furniture. The same traits that made them economical for makers to produce also makes them a relatively easy to recreate in the home shop &mdash they use minimal material and simple joinery.

At their most basic, the stands are two sides linked by shelves (usually three or four), often with some kind of toe kick. Variation in the shape of the sides, orientation of the shelves and sides, and how the shelves joined the sides produced a surprising number of variations on the basic theme. Plugged screws, pocket hole screws, dadoes, or tenons can join the shelves to the sides. Using screws or keyed tenons allows the stand to be broken down for storage or transport.

Altering the shape of the sides transforms the character of the shelf. Gustav Stickley’s No. 79 features rectangular sides with a rounded corners at the top. Charles Limbert’s catalogues

Change the shape of the side and transform the character of the stand.

Change the shape of the side and transform the character of the stand.

featured several versions with trapezoidal sides. Limbert’s No. 346 takes the trapezoidal form further, tapering from top to bottom on the sides and faces.

More Information

Popular Woodworking offers a free plan of a simplified version of Stickley’s No. 79.

Gary Rogowski’s “Classic Craftsman Bookcase” (Fine Woodworking No. 136) details construction of a stand with keyed through tenons.

A narrow table–construction

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The table: before. Red alder in the rough.

The table: before. Red alder in the rough.

I don’t like dimensioning rough stock, but my local sawyer had a good price on red alder. So construction began with a lot of time on the jointer and planer. Once I’d prepped my stock, I chose the best boards for the tops and glued them up.

While the tops dried, I prepared the template for the long aprons, then cut the blanks. The pattern was roughed on the bandsaw, then each apron was routed to final shape using the template to guide the router.  While the original design called for a stepped arch on the short aprons as well as the long, they made the table look too busy, so I went with straight aprons for the sides.

After cutting the tops to final size, I added a two-inch bevel along the bottom edges. The long bevels were cut on the table saw. Since the top was far to long to bevel the short edges on the table saw. I used scrub and smoothing planes to bevel the shorts ends.

One of two completed tables prior to installation.

One of two completed tables prior to installation.

The legs began as 8/4 stock roughed out to 1.5″ blanks. Before cutting the tapers, I pre-drilled for hanger bolts. Another template simplified reproducing the curved taper 16 times with the router.

After sanding all parts through 220 grit, I wiped on three coats of blond shellac, then lightly wetsanded with 400 grit to smooth things out once the shellac had cured.

Then it was time for assembly. I attached the aprons to the to the top through pocket screw holes after reaming out the holes to allow the top to expand freely. To allow the tables to knock down for transportation, the legs were attached using hanger bolts and corner blocks.

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