Arts & Crafts furniture and veneering
Frank
I was just about to embark on a couple of projects in Arts &
Crafts-style furniture using quartersawn white oak. First one out
will probably be a library table. I've been getting ready for this by
rereading hundred-year-old plans from Gustav Stickley's publication
The Craftsman, and also newer approaches in the book "The Furniture of
Gustav Stickley" by Bavaro and Mossman.
I note that Bavaro and Mossman say that Stickley used veneering fairly
rarely, mostly to cover up seams in table legs and similar thick posts
that are laminated up from thinner boards. I also understand that
Gustav usually used a fairly simple approach involving gluing a thin
veneer of wood with a good figure over the side of the leg or post
that has the expoed seam. Apparently his brothers at the L. Stickley
company used the more complex technique of mitering diagonal-shaped
pieces to make up table legs.
Anyway, here are two questions I wanted to lay before the Arts &
Crafts aficionados out there:
-- I have a source for 12/4 quartersawn white oak, so I don't need to
laminate up table legs out of thinner boards. But the sides of the
legs obviously won't have the more desirable quartersawn type of
figure. If you were me, would you apply a veneer to these sides
anyway, or just let the legs be however the figure is on the plain
posts?
-- All of the books I've looked at on A&C furniture just talk about
gluing up tabletops from planks and then trimming off the ends. In
other words, the ends of the table will have exposed endgrain, rather
than a veneer or some other strategy for putting a more attractive
wood face in that place. Was this really the way Stickley and his
contemporaries did it -- just left endgrain exposed on the ends of
tabletops?
Thanks for any input.
mike wilcox
Hi Frank, as an appraiser/restorer I look at the Arts &
Crafts/Mission stuff all the time. Any of the tables I have seen
all have the end grain exposed and use veneers on plain sawn
sections or the lock mitre type legs with 1/4 sawn faces. I guess
the answer is "how original do you want your work to look", I'd
go the whole hog and face veneer the unfired surfaces.
Mike Wilcox
--
mike wilcox
Hi Frank, as an appraiser/restorer I look at the Arts &
Crafts/Mission stuff all the time. Any of the tables I have seen
all have the end grain exposed and use veneers on plain sawn
sections or the lock mitre type legs with 1/4 sawn faces. I guess
the answer is "how original do you want your work to look", I'd
go the whole hog and face veneer the unfigured surfaces.
Mike Wilcox
--
Tom Mears
I recently put together a A&C style bed. The plan called for 4x4 posts. I
made them up with a lock miter on the router table out of 3/4 stock. This
worked & looked fine...
"Frank" <f...@netcom.com> wrote in message
news:fsmbutggatr8k1qmj...@4ax.com...
Frank
>Hi Frank, as an appraiser/restorer I look at the Arts &
>Crafts/Mission stuff all the time. Any of the tables I have seen
>all have the end grain exposed and use veneers on plain sawn
>sections or the lock mitre type legs with 1/4 sawn faces. I guess
>the answer is "how original do you want your work to look", I'd
>go the whole hog and face veneer the unfired surfaces.
Mike,
Thanks for the comment. Bavaro and Mossman's book talks about using
veneer strips that are about 1/8" thick. Is that about the thickness
of the veneers visible on the hundred-year-old furniture that you see?
Also, does this result in a prominent seam?
Thanks again,
Frank
mike wilcox
Hi Frank,
1/8" is about right, usually the seam is only noticeable on the lower
sections of the legs where moisture and seasonal movement have "popped" or
swollen the veneer. Just match the grain up as close as you can using
veneer cut from the same piece of lumber used on on the rest of the leg,
so when you fume the piece the colour is uniform.
--
Mike Wilcox
Antique & Collectible Appraisals Online
Antique News, Appraisal Tutorials and More
http://www3.sympatico.ca/appraisers
Andy Dingley
>If you were me, would you apply a veneer to these sides
>anyway, or just let the legs be however the figure is on the plain
>posts?
Do whatever you want - but if you _do_ veneer, then cut your own
veneers from the same board as the rest of the leg. Otherwise fuming
gives you a colour variation.
In my case, the inability to resaw this veneer made me go with the
lock mitre approach. If you have a shaper or big router, but don't
have a good bandsaw, then this might be appropriate for you too.
If I was going to the trouble to source quartersawn oak though (this
isn't easy in the UK !) then I'd definitely put ray-figure on all
faces of a leg.
OTOH, an upcoming project is a Morris chair or two, and that's going
to be ash (and some blackwood detailing), just to lighten the colour.
>-- All of the books I've looked at on A&C furniture just talk about
>gluing up tabletops from planks and then trimming off the ends. In
>other words, the ends of the table will have exposed endgrain, rather
>than a veneer or some other strategy for putting a more attractive
>wood face in that place.
AFAIK (I'm no expert) Stickley never veneered to hide end grain. He
veneered to put ray-figured grain on all faces, but end grain was seen
as an honest constructional detail and nothing to be ashamed of. His
designs didn't show great areas of it anyway, so the contrast was
attractive.
--
Smert' Spamionam
Frank
>I recently put together a A&C style bed. The plan called for 4x4 posts. I
>made them up with a lock miter on the router table out of 3/4 stock. This
>worked & looked fine...
Tom,
Did you do that on the router rable with a 45-degree chamfer bit?
That sounds like it would make the cut very easy to do, but it sounded
as though getting the pieces aligned during glue-up might still be a
daunting process. Not a problem, I gather?
Frank
Frank
>1/8" is about right, usually the seam is only noticeable on the lower
>sections of the legs where moisture and seasonal movement have "popped" or
>swollen the veneer. Just match the grain up as close as you can using
>veneer cut from the same piece of lumber used on on the rest of the leg,
>so when you fume the piece the colour is uniform.
Thanks for the help. Re fuming -- this is actually one part of the
process where I depart from the traditional. When I started doing A&C
projects a couple of years ago, I went through quite a lot of
experiments fuming test pieces in a small tent/box I built for the
purpose. I ran into quite a lot of problems. With some wood, the
chemical content was such that I got an unpleasant greenish cast to
the final color no matter how long I went (I understand that this is
also affected by the fuming temperature). I also found a lot of
boards had sections that needed a lot of manual touch-up to get a
continuous color. After a lot of fussing with this, I ran across a
dye procedure advocated by Jeff Jewitt, a well-known author on
finishing (see http://www.homesteadfinishing.com/mission_oak.htm ).
I liked the results that I got with this on one project, so I've just
been skipping the fuming and using dye instead. I know, I know, it
ain't traditional, but it works for me!
Charles Bragg
<din...@codesmiths.com> wrote:
>AFAIK (I'm no expert) Stickley never veneered to hide end grain. He
>veneered to put ray-figured grain on all faces, but end grain was seen
>as an honest constructional detail and nothing to be ashamed of. His
>designs didn't show great areas of it anyway, so the contrast was
>attractive.
When the Green Bros. got over their first stage of Stickley
love, they put breadboard caps over the end grain. They also did a
clever sliding ebony insert that allowed the wood to move while making
it look like it hadn't. It's complicated enough that I'm guessing they
really *hated* end grain.
=====
Those are my principles. If you don't like them I have others.
=====
{remove curly brackets for email}
Andy Dingley
> When the Green Bros. got over their first stage of Stickley
>love, they put breadboard caps over the end grain.
Did they even do this on tenon ends ?
Andy Dingley
>Did you do that on the router rable with a 45-degree chamfer bit?
I do mine with the Jesada lock mitre bit
I made a mistake when I bought this bit - it's far too big for the
box-making I'd planned for it. It works fine for leg-making though.
Charles Bragg
No, I believe they put stiles over those. But seriously,
folks, even the shelves in some (haven't seen them all) Gamble House
bookcases are mitred frame and panel - no end grain anywhere. The
fancy caps went on the tabletops.