Building Techniques in Mid-Century Modern Furniture is now available at shopwoodwhorking.com
I spent the first week of January at the Popular Woodworking shop to shoot a couple of videos. The first, Building Techniques in Mid-Century Modern Furniture, is now available on shopwoodworking.com.
To help promote the launch of the video, I wrote “Five Lessons from Mid-Century Modern Furniture” for the PWM shop blog.
Giant soft boxes illuminate a bench in the Popular Woodworking shop.
I spent the first full week of January in Blue Ash, Ohio at the Popular Woodworking shop to film two videos–one on Mid-Century Modern construction techniques, the other on building a coffee table in the style of Finn Juhl. It’s a little intimidating to be in front of three cameras, but I’m looking forward to seeing the finished product. And I’d love to have those lights in my basement shop.
The base of the No. 239 tabouret reminds me of the No. 254 umbrella stand.
I’d leaned the sides of the tabouret against the bench to get them out of the way to begin work on the corbels when something in their shape seemed familiar. Because the Limbert Furniture Company produced so many designs featuring the tapered column base, it took me a minute to realize why these sides look familiar: They are very similar to the the shape of the No. 254 umbrella stand. The stand may have a slightly wider mouth than the table, but both share the same footprint and similar cutouts, though the tabouret features two cutouts the stand’s one. It would be easy to repurpose the template I created to build the umbrella stand, either preserving both cutouts or omitting the second. The umbrellas probably won’t mind if I’m not 100% accurate to the original.…
The No. 254 Umbrella Stand is one of thirty-three Limbert designs featured in my first book, Building Classic Arts & Crafts Furniture, available on Amazon and Shopwoodworking.com.
I’d read in the past that you can use woodworking tools to mill soft metals like brass and aluminum, but I didn’t give that much thought. I also read you can bond metal using epoxy. Again, I didn’t give the fact much thought–until recently. Researching an upcoming project, I’ve finally had cause experiment with epoxy and aluminum tubing, and with my first results, my reaction has gone from “oh, you can epoxy aluminum” to something like “HOLY @#!$! YOU CAN EXPOXY ALUMINUM!” No need to braze or weld, you can just glue. Couple that capability with the ability to mill soft metals using woodworking tools, and it opens up new potential in the shop.
I’m still in the early stages of my experimentation, practicing simple and compound miter joints, but it’s a short step from experiment to fabricating parts. The base of a Nelson bench comes to mind, as does a variation on an Eames surfboard table.
To build the miter:
Like several other designs from the maker, Limbert’s No. 239 Tabouret features an octagonal top over a tapered columnar base.
The Limbert furniture company produced several occasional tables on the same theme–an octagonal top supported by corbels and a tapered columnar base. The No. 239 also features two cutouts on each side, the shape of cutouts echoing the shape of the sides.
The Masters home from Masters Of Sex (Photo: Michael Wylie)
The AV Club recently featured an article on what it’s like to be a production designer. The interview subject, Michael Wylie, designed the sets for Masters of Sex. There’s not much on Mid-Century, but it was interesting to read about how Wylie used production design to help establish the personalities of Ben Masters and Virginia Johnson. In Johnsons’ case, the austere Mid-Century decor reflects a repressed personality.
The October 2015 issue of Popular Woodworking Magazine includes my article on building a Mid-Century Modern book case.
The October 2015 issue of Popular Woodworking Magazine features my article on building an open-backed book case (it also works as a room divider) in the Mid-Century Modern style. I’ve detailed parts of the build on 1910 Craftsman, but the article goes into depth on step-by-step construction. I’m in good company in this issue–I enjoyed Jeff Miller’s article on the slat-back chair and am sorely tempted by Lee Valley’s new trammel points.
You can read the introduction to my article on the issue index or order a copy from shopwoodwhorking.com. This case is one of 29 designs featured in my book Mid-Century Modern Furniture, which is available on Amazon and shopWoodworking.com.
I was happy to see both my books on the shelf at Powell’s.
A trip to Portland this weekend meant we could admire the Craftsman homes in Hawthorne and browse for books at Powell’s. There’s been some substantial rearrangement since we were there last, but I was able to find the woodworking section eventually and was pleased to see my books on Limbert Furniture and Mid-Century Modern furniture on the shelf.
I was looking for an excuse to play around with Knight Labs’ Timeline JS, and Mid-Century Modern seemed like a good subject. It can take a while to load, but it’s pretty neat, and assembling a timeline isn’t too difficult.
An early Limbert drop-arm settle showing a Voysey influence with the cutout slats.
One of the benefits of attending the Arts & Crafts conference at the Grove Park Inn earlier this year was being able to see a lot of period furniture in person. Although I wrote a book on Limbert’s furniture, I haven’t had the opportunity to see much of it in the wild, a deficit I was able to close at the Grove Park Inn. The Inn itself features a fair amount of Limbert, and there were some fine pieces offered for sale in the dealers’ room, including this early settle.