The Rest of the Beginning

You may remember the front of this cabinet from my post The Beginning from way back in December in which I created the door with a cherry tree motif using a bolection inlay technique which left the branches and blossoms lightly proud of the surface.

I started the rest of the cabinet by designing it using SketchUp, I continued the wood combination from the door, cherry for the sides, walnut for the shelves and the top/bottom, curly maple for the drawer and the back.

The box is joined with finger joints to highlight the contrasting woods, the shelves are let into the sides with dadoes. The back is 1/4 inch birch plywood with curly maple veneer. The drawer is curly maple with a 1 inch hole for a pull.

I used a 1/2 inch quarter round bit on the inside edge of the hinge side of the door then used a 1/4 inch brass rod attached from the top and the bottom as a pivot hinge. I used a cove bit to route a handle into the free side to keep the lines clean and simple. The door rests inside the edge of the top and bottom letting the walnut frame the door.

The finish is as simple as it comes, a few coats of Watco Danish Oil, Natural, followed by a rubbing with paste wax. I installed a french cleat to the back of the cabinet and attached it to the wall that way. I've very happy with the way this came out. I enjoy making Stickley, Limbert, and Greene & Green reproductions but sometimes it's really nice to design something yourself and see it come to life.

It's a job that's never started that takes the longest to finish.
J. R. R. Tolkien

Maloof Inspired Rocker, Charles Brock Plans, part 7

Last weekend I started work on one of the most elegant, and probably the most important part of the Maloof inspired rocker, the rockers. This part of the build is a departure from the rest of the chair, it requires some bent lamination. Mr. Brock adds a strip of maple and ebony to his rockers for emphasis, but I decided that I wanted to stick with my total walnut theme.

The book and DVD shows Mr. Brock slicing the laminations of the band saw with jointing the stock in between each cut and cleaning up the cut with a drum sander. I decided to use the thin strip cutting accessory from Rockler, this in combination with my glue line rip blade on my tablesaw makes for easily repeatable strip cutting without having to clean up the stock between each cut and cleaning up the bandsaw on the sander. You may say that the loss of 1/8th of an inch with each cut is unacceptable, but since I'm cutting along the width, not the thickness of the stock this is less of an issue. I marked a triangle on the stock so that I could keep the laminates in order after cutting.

I had previously created the bending form using the template included in the book using the cut off of the curve for a caul. The stock for the rockers is roughed to 1 1/2 inch thick so I made the form out of 2 thicknesses 3/4 inch of MDF attached to a backer board. I covered all the contact surfaces with packing tape to keep the glue from sticking to the form. Using Titebond II glue for the extended open time I coated the top side of all but the top laminate. After laying the laminates in order on the form I used the top caul to pull in the bend at the center, applying pressure with F style clamps. Adding a few clamps lets you work back and forth to bring the laminates into contact with the bending form. The most difficult part is to create the back bend on the end of the rocker, this again is done by pulling the laminates into the form using a series of clamps. I used a deadblow hammer to knock the laminates flat into the form as I went. The set up was left to sit overnight.

Using left over stock from the laminates adder blocks 6 inches long are attached to the rocker after it is removed from the form. This allow the sweeping transition to be created from the leg to the rockers. Using a posterboard template for the curves I rough cut the transition of the legs to the rockers on the bandsaw after aligning the attachment points. I used a round over bit in my small router to shape the outside of each rocker and a smaller round over bit on the inside edges. Once both rockers are roughed out I cut the legs so that they would sit on the transition blocks using the technique Mr. Brock shows in the DVD. After a little trimming and fitting the rockers are attached to the rockers using 1/2 inch oak dowels.

I let the rocker attachment dry for a week, hey I had things to do, I started shaping the rockers and the transitions. Again I used my new favorite carving tool, the microplane, to form the rocker to leg transitions and the shape the taper on the back curves of the rockers. After the microplane I stepped down to rasps and files to smooth out the transitions, following this I started hand sanding starting at 120 grit, progressing to 150, 180, 220, 320, and 400, I followed this with 3M pads, maroon, grey and finally white.
With this, the construction of the rocker is complete! It has been a long road, I started the first weekend in April and here it is, the middle of June, I estimate around 120 hours into this build already, what with remaking the back legs once and the front legs twice and taking my time. I've learned a lot about making chairs and rockers, and more shaping wood. I've watched the DVD over and over and poured through the book. I want to say that I would not have been able to do this if it wasn't for Charles Brock's efforts with his DVD/book and website.

The next and final post will go over finishing the rocker and lessons learned while building it. I'll share with you more of my thoughts on the DVD/book and lots of pics of the finished rocker.

"To practice any art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow. So do it." - Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

Maloof Inspired Rocker, Charles Brock Plans 6

This weekend I got some good shop time since it was raining both days. I was able to get quite a bit done and I have to say that I'm really happy with the way this chair is looking.

I started by using the spindle pattern and marking out 7 spindles for the back of the chair. The good thing is that they are designed so that you can cut them out like nesting spoons, thus saving alot of wood. After bandsawing four from one board and three from another I cleaned up the cut marks on the spindle sander, how appropriate.

Next I took a posterboard cutout of the front profile of the spindles and transfered the marks to both sides of the spindles. I then took the stock back to the bandsaw and again to the spindle sander. Once everything was cleaned up and shaped correctly I marked a centerline on the front and back to aid in shaping and lines on the side to help me maintain the right shape. With a spindle resting on the table I used a roundover bit in my small router to shape the long top taper of the spindle. I then mounted the spindle in the vice and shaped a slight round on the front and a steep round on the back with the microplane, I also shaped a round on the short bottom taper.


After sanding each spindle with 60 grit on my random orbit sander I marked each to length and shaped the bottom with a 1/2 inch tapered dowel cutter and the top with a 3/8th inch tapered dowel cutter both of which Mr. Brock recommends in the DVD. With each spindle shaped and tapered I proceeded to sand them 80, 120, 180, and 220 grits.

With the spindles completed I sanded to headrest up to 220 grit and I sanded the inside of the back legs through 220 grit. After placing the spindles in place I attempted to fit the headrest but had to take it off a couple of times and trim and adjust a few of the spindles. Once everything was adjusted and fitted correctly I was able to screw the headrest in place. At this point I noticed that a couple of the spindles that had cut outs that did not exactly line up, so I marked the cut outs that needed to be adjusted and called it a weekend. Next weekend I plan on cutting the stock for the rockers and laminating them. At this point I cannot wait to start oiling this chair up and seeing the grain come to life.

"We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be."
- Kurt Vonnegut

Maloof Inspired Rocker, Charles Brock Plans 4

This weekend I got to some of the really fun parts of the Maloof inspired rocker, shaping some of the parts. To start with I refined some of the cuts on the back legs and smoothed the edges on my oscillating spindle sander. I then chocked up a round over bit in my small hand held router and rounded over the edges I could get to on the back legs. I stayed away from the area of the seat, the arm joint and the headrest. Mr. Brock doesn't talk about routing the edges but what I wanted was to ease the edges and leave myself with a guide for shaping the other areas.

Next I screwed the legs in place and using my micro planes rasps I fit the curves in the legs to the seat, careful not to damage the seat, I cut the legs until it was flush with the seat. I also used the New Wave sanding system
to refine the shape.

I laid out the holes for the back spindles in the back of the seat and after removing the legs I drilled the 1/2 inch holes and rounded over the underside and top of the seat. After a little more sanding on the seat I glued the legs in place and screwed the 3 inch screws in place, one of the back screws ended up going right through on of the spindle holes so those with have to be removed after the glue dries and replaced after the spindles are installed.

I started shaping the arms after aligning them and drilling the dowel holes in the arms to attach them to the front legs. I rough cut the shape of one arm on the bandsaw and then started shaping it with the microplanes which are quickly becoming my favorite way to carve things. Now I have to rough cut the mate to match and see if I can carve them both to equal, pleasing, comfortable shapes.

"Of course the game is rigged. Don't let that stop you--if you don't play, you can't win."
- Robert Heinlein

Limbert #366 Bookcase Finished

The last couple of weekends I spent most of my time finishing the Limbert bookcase, if you're not familiar with my finishing process check out my post on it here. It takes a few days to complete with drying time in between, so while I was waiting I was working on my Shaker table for The Woodwhisperer Guild March Woodworkers Fighting Cancer build. It was kind of nice having two projects going on at the same time, if I got bored with sanding I could switch over to tapering the legs of the table, if I didn't have much time I could work on the drawer. I decided to go with a medium brown finish for the bookcase so I started with medium brown dye and I used brown Mahogany gel stain for the over stain. I took the time to finish the backing plywood prior to attaching it to the back of the case with 1/2 inch staples to allow for any wood movement.
Once the dark wax was mostly dry I had a friend help me carry it into the house, all that quartersawn white oak is heavy. After letting the wax cure overnight I couldn't wait to set up my vintage Kodak camera collection on the top and fill the bookcase with my woodworking and photography books that have been piled on my dining room table for months. Then I decompressed some of my other bookcases leaving me with a whole empty shelf to expand in to.
I was very happy with the way this project came together, I started with just some pictures and measurements, used Sketchup to make them into a workable plan and went on from there. One detail that I didn't cover in my
previous posts is the bevel on the edge of the adjustable shelves, its a nice little touch that you can see in the pictures or some of the antiques. I created the bevel the same way I did on the top of the Shaker table, I adjusted the angle of my tablesaw to 12.5 degrees and set the fence 1/2 inch away from the blade. Using a tall fence and a magnetic featherboard I carefully moved the shelves vertically past the blade. Cuts like this almost always leave burn marks so a little clean up with a low angle smoothing plane was in order. Every time I make something I learn something new, sometimes something big, sometimes something small, I noticed with this bookcase sitting near my last one that my sanding and finishing have improved. I learned on this one that it is easier to finish a bookcase with the back not attached, a lot easier.

"Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions."

- His Holiness the Dalai Lama

Limbert #366 Bookcase, Part 2

Last weekend I cut and routed the dadoes and grooves in the sides of the Limbert #366 bookcase. During the week I took a few hours and, using the template I marked out the cutouts and the bottom lift. After drilling a few access holes and cutting the waste out with a jigsaw I used the template and a 3/4 inch pattern cutting bit to clean up the cuts. I also cut the adjustable shelves to size and added the bevel on the front of each shelf.

Saturday I cut and glued up the top for my cherry Shaker table for the Woodwhisperer Guild Woodworkers Fighting Cancer build, then I moved on to sanding the bookcase. I ran the complete sanding schedule I use for white oak, starting with 60 grit, then 80, 120 and finally 180 grit. Between 120 and 180 grit on the inside of the sides I drilled the shelf pin holes for the adjustable shelves. I don't use a fancy template for this, I have a section of pegboard with two lines of holes 8 inches apart marked every 2 inches. With this I use a 1/4 inch brad point drill bit with a stop collar in place to drill 1/2 inch deep holes. I've used this on many projects and have never had problems with it, its simple, its cheap and I can make custom templates for any project.

The final dryfit was done after hand fitting each part, a few clamps were used to hold everything together and tight while I took measurements to insure that everything was square. I took the rest of the afternoon to make a taper cutting jig for the tablesaw inspired by Marc's live Guild event as I would need to cut long tapers for the Shaker table.
Today I had to run to Lowes to get some oak ply for the back of the bookcase, all of the pictures of the original that I could find show a plywood back so why not? I gathered my long clamps and glue bottle and completed the glueup. After a couple of hours of drying I flipped the bookcase onto its face and measured for the plywood back. After cutting and sanding the plywood I placed it and attached it with some blue tape for the pictures leaving it unattached to make finishing easier.

I took the rest of the day to cut the mortises in the Shaker table and taper the legs. Also I took the top for the table out of the clamps and rough sanded it.

One of the features that attracted me to this particular bookcase is the detail on top of the piece. The small fixed shelf and the cutouts along with the solid wood back and the large fixed top shelf are very nice and would make a perfect place for me to keep part of my vintage Kodak camera collection. I can't wait to complete the finish and get this bookcase in the house.

"Take everything you like seriously, except yourselves."

Rudyard Kipling

Limbert #366 Bookcase

When I started my journey into Arts and Crafts furniture I was of course drawn to Stickley's designs, his being the most common in the literature. As I got further along I discovered Charles Limbert and his unique take on furniture. Limbert was a student of European designers, particularly Charles Rennie Mackintosh of the Glasgow school, his designs are noted by cutouts and curves. I've made many Limbert pieces and blogged about them here. I found this bookcase in a reprint of an early 1900's Limbert catalog and searched online auction catalogs until I found this one.

Limbert produced this model with and without a door, and in a double wide version. The single door version fits the size that I want, its 64 inches tall, 12 inches deep and 30 inches wide. I'm not sure if I will add the door or not, but for now I'm proceeding with the assumption that I won't have a door. I took the photo into Google Sketchup and with the know dimensions produced a plan that I've uploaded in The Wood Whisperer Community.

From this model I produced a cutlist and exploded details of the parts. Saturday was spent preparing the Quartersawn White Oak stock and gluing up the parts, I also created a template for the rectangular cutouts at the top of the bookcase and the small lift at the bottom. Sunday I took everything out of the clamps and cleaned off the boards. I trimmed each piece down to the correct size and cut the 3/8th inch dado along the back of the sides and on the top and bottom shelves. Using a T-square guide and a plunge router I cut the dadoes for the top and bottom shelves and for the small shelf. I switched to the router guide and a 3/8th inch bit and cut the mortises for the top and bottom aprons. After squaring up the end of the small shelf dado with a chisel I cut the tenons on the aprons using the dado blade still in the tablesaw.

After doing a little fitting of the pieces with a routerplane and chisel I was able to complete an initial dryfit before calling it a day. I wanted to get a good start on this build because starting next weekend I'll be beginning the Guild March Shaker table project as part of Woodworker's fighting cancer. I'll be recording my progress of the Shaker table and continuing on with this project so look for updates.

"First things first, but not neccessarily in that order." - Dr. Who

The Beginning

I know that I can make a nice wall cabinet, the challenge with this project was the inlay that I had thought of for the door. That being said, I decided to start with what for me is usually the end, the door. This is going to be a stand alone wall cabinet to replace a smaller one in my bedroom, it's made from Cherry and I wanted to incorporate a bolection inlay of a Japanese Cherry tree on the door. I've never done a bolection inlay before and wasn't sure if I could pull it off well enough so I wanted to complete the inlay first to leave me multiple options with the design if I couldn't pull it off.

I started by selecting an interesting grain pattern and cutting it to size of the planned door. I wanted the underlying grain to mimic the mountains that you would see in the background of a Japanese print.

With the grain pattern set I sketched out a Cherry tree on large graph paper, at this point I had in my mind how I was going to do the wood of the tree but I still wasn't sure about the blossoms. I cut the sketch of the trunk into smaller components and using spray adhesive I attached them to pieces of 3/16 inch thick walnut aligning the grain in pleasing ways. After cutting out all the pieces on the scroll saw I used double sided tape to hole the walnut to the door and outlined them with a sharp Exacto knife. Working with one component at time I then routed a 1/16th inch deep relief into the door. After fitting the piece I then would move on to the next piece, completing the tree in a few days between finishing up Christmas projects. I still had in my mind that I would cut the blossoms and without routing glue them to the door and shape them with my Foredom power carver. I tried this method as a test and was very disappointed. The small blossoms were very hard to cut on the scroll saw and attempting to shape them scarred up the base wood. I gave up on this approach.

As often happens I had an epiphany in the shower, I'd go abstract and simple. After I dried off and dressed I went out into the shop and using a 3/8th inch plug cutter I cut a scrap of curly maple into plugs. I drilled some 3/8th inch holes into some scrap cherry and drove the plugs in. I trimmed the plugs with a chisel and shaped them with a sanding block. I noticed that there was a slight space around the plugs and that all of one size would look odd, so I undersized the drill bit by 1/64th of an inch and tried that. The plugs fit very tight and after trimming and shaping there was no space around the plug. I then moved to the drill press and cut 3/8th and 1/4 inch plugs from a block of curly maple. I started placing holes where they looked good and plugging them, I kept adding them here and there until I was happy. After trimming them and sanding the plugs and the trunk I decided that the project was a success and the wall cabinet could proceed with this design. More to come as the cabinet takes shape.

"The beginning is the most important part of the work." - Plato

Limbert #234 Tabourette, Part 1

My neighbor asked me to make her an end table and a coffee table in the arts and crafts style to go in her bungalow. I showed her some of the completed pieces in my house and she was drawn more to the Limbert style. I did some more research in my books and online and came up with this little tabourette as an end table, I showed her the pictures and described my idea for a coffee table that would compliment the design of the end table. Coffee tables weren't a part of American homes in the 1900's but I took a Limbert cocktail table and lowered it and changed it some to make it a coffee table, more on that in a later post.

In previous posts I have described my method of scaling plans from pictures but luckily I was able to find descriptions of this table along with dimensions, which are 16"x16"x18" tall. These relate to the widest measurements, the top which will be square. From this and the photos I came up with the dimensions in the picture at the left.

Using Google Sketchup I created a model of the table along with dimensioned elevations, I was also able to look at the components and come up with construction details such as how to connect the sides.

After removing the stock from the clamps and trimming it to size I took this template I made up from the plan above and marked out the areas to be cut out. After removing the bulk of the waste with a jigsaw for the cut outs and the bandsaw for the bottom I carefully aligned the template to the inside of each side piece and screwed it in place. Using a template like this for routing is always good, you can attach it with double sided tape or if piece has a hidden side you can just screw the template to the stock. I used a 1/2 inch pattern cutting bit in the router table to give the cutouts the proper radius at the corners. After this I cut a 45 degree miter on each side of the side pieces.

What followed was some sanding and a little hand work on the cutouts then I glued the miters together using the miter cutoffs as glue blocks a little time cooking in the clamps while I sanded the top. A final sanding on everything inside and out and attaching the top with figure 8 table irons, a little more touch up sanding and a cleaning finished up this project for the weekend and now all that is left if finishing. My neighbor looked at the finish samples that I keep and picked the middle range of the five I have so when I start on the finish I just turn over the sample and the "recipe" is written on the back. For more on my arts and crafts finish and a look at the samples see this post.

" Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter, and those that matter don't mind." Dr. Seuss

A Picture in Wood

The weekend before last I took this picture at a park near my house late in the day when the Dragonflies were having a great time buzzing around and doing what Dragonflies do. This one landed on this leaf long enough for me to get a few snaps of him.

This weekend I printed out a copy of the picture and turned it into an inlay. I used walnut and cherry for the plant. On the dragonfly I used quartersawn mahogany for the darker wings and plainsawn mahogany for the lighter wings in an attempt to give it some depth. The abdomen is zebrawood and the legs and eyes are wenge. The background is curly maple with nice dark streaks in it, and a neat curve from a branch.

After the glue dried I smoothed the inlay with a bevel up smoothing plane followed by a card scraper, I then glued it to a 1/4 inch Baltic plywood substrate. This piece will eventually find its way to the top of a jewelry box, but for now, its just a picture in wood.

All things are difficult before they are easy. - Dr. Thomas Fuller

Dragonfly Inlayed Jewelrybox

This is my second inlaid jewelry box and like the first one it is also a gift. The box is made from one board of Bolivian Rosewood planed to 5/8 inches thick. I cut the miters so that the grain would appear to wrap around the box.

The background for the image is curly maple with an interesting knot feature and some dark streaks. The wings are quartersawn mahogany with ebony tips. The main body is wenge and the tail is zebra wood. The eyes are padauk outlined by ebony and the legs are ebony. The branch is walnut, click on the image and view it larger to get a better idea of the inlay. The inlay is attached to 1/4 inch thick Baltic birch plywood, the bottom is also Baltic birch plywood.

After sanding I cut the top off on the tablesaw leaving a very thin piece of wood to be removed with a handsaw. I cleaned up the remaining wood with a block plane and some sanding. One this box I used a couple of 10mm barrel hinges, they worked out better than the hinges I used on the previous one. The box is finished with multiple coats of Danish Oil followed by two coats or paste wax, the inside is top and bottom is covered with wine colored flocking.

This is the first small box that I am completely happy with the way it turned out. As with anything, practice makes better, not perfect, but still better.

What matters is the value we've created in our lives, the people we've made happy & how much we've grown as people. ~D. Ikeda

Limbert Tables in SketchUp

I received a couple of emails and comments on scaling the images to create templates for the two Limbert tables I recently posted as SketchUp plans. The first step is to click on each of the pictures to get the larger view, save these to your computer and print them as large as you can. You will notice that the drawing is on a grid, this grid is 1x1 inch. Take a piece of poster board and draw a 1x1 inch grid on it, you can buy poster board with a ghost grid 1/2 x 1/2 inch printed already. Next scale the drawing by transferring the corner points and some guide points for the curve onto the poster board. Connect the dots and you have an outline of the side of the table you want to create as a template. Cut it out and trace it onto a piece of plywood or MDF, cut the template out on a bandsaw and clean up the lines and you have a perfect template to use to create the sides of either or both tables. I hope that this helps.

"The only real failure in life is not to be true to the best one knows." ~Buddha

Limbert #240 Lamp Table part 2

While I am a huge fan of Robert Lang's Shop Drawings series of books I have found that there can be differences in his shop drawings and some photos of the antiques that I find on the Internet. These differences may well be design or process changes between runs of the furniture. As an avid searcher for pictures of details or original Arts and Crafts furniture I often find details that I prefer better than the one described in Mr. Lang's books. One of these differences is the top cross piece on this table. To your left is a photo I found of an original Limbert #240 Lamp Table, notice the cross braces holding on the top. In Mr. Lang's More Shop Drawings for Craftsman Furniture he calls for four small corbels that match the end of these cross braces. While certainly adequate to hold the top in place I found when I previously built this piece a few years ago that I was less than happy with the final result. I found this picture on EBay where it was listed as an original and indeed had the original stamp of Limbert. Most pictures I've found on antique auction sites show the table from the front and top not showing any of the details. While this may be great for selling the piece it isn't as satisfying for a woodworker that wants to turn it over and see how its made. That is what makes this on of my favorite pictures, apart for the beautiful antique sitting on gravel and leaning on a concrete curb, yikes!
As a result I measured out and made these cross braces for my version of the table. The ends match the curve drawn out by Mr. Lang. I cut 2 pieces of 7/8 inch thick stock 2 inches wide and 18 inches long. After cutting a halflap joint in both pieces I transferred the template of the curve to the wood and cut it out on the bandsaw, I cleaned it up on the oscillating spindle sander and by hand. I then went to the dryfit of the sides and measured the exact distance across the top where the braces will sit. I then transferred the angle of the sides to the stock and cut out the dado on the tablesaw by adjusting the miter gauge, in this case 3 degrees, and sneaking up on the lines then nibbling away at the dado while checking fit with a scrap block. After making all the cuts I could at this angle I moved the miter gauge to the other side of zero to 3 degrees and repeated on the other dados. I tested the fit on the dryfit sides. To my great surprise everything fit and lined up, with just a few light taps with a deadblow the cross braces locked into place on the top of the table.

I cut the tabletop to 20 inches square and marked out 3 inch radius rounds on the corners. I cut the corners on the bandsaw and cleaned it up on the disc sander. Taking everything apart I sanded all the parts to 150 grit and left it for the weekend.

This week while stuck in a hotel overnight for work I pulled up Sketchup and decided to give drawing this table a shot. I have been working on learning Sketchup but it has been a slow process, one reason is that I don't work on it very often, the other is that I'm working on my laptop and had not been using a mouse. I picked up a wireless wheel mouse as recommended to me by many Sketchup guru's and success. Here is a model of this table that I have posted on The WoodWhisperer forum. I did this from memory not having the book with me but after making the jigs, templates and pieces I was very familiar with the measurements. I would suggest using the model to see how it goes together and not for the exact measurements, for that pick up Robert Lang's book More Shop Drawings for Craftsman Furniture.

The project is sitting on my assembly table waiting to be glued up this week and start the finishing process this weekend. This is a really fun project, and while there are no tenons or ebony plugs its beautiful in its lines and curves. Use the sketchup model to take it apart and see how everything goes together, you can learn a lot about how to make a piece by doing this. I'll still do my designing with paper and pencil as it is faster for me and I can let my ideas flow and work them out in my head, but for complicated designs like this one I'll virtually build it and refine it on the computer. Besides, it gives me something to do when stuck out of town in a hotel.

"Happiness lies in the joy of achievement and the thrill of creative effort." - Franklin D. Roosevelt

Limbert #240 Lamp Table part 1

This weekend I started a reproduction of a Charles Limbert design #240 Lamp Table, the original was produced circa 1903. Unlike Gustav Stickley, Limbert was not concerned with humble simplicity of design, his furniture borrows heavily from the prairie style of Frank Lloyd Wright and the designs of Charles Renee MacKintosh.

I really like Limbert's designs, I've made one of his large tables, the Double Oval Table, and two of his smaller tables, the #244, and the #238. I previously made this table for a friend, but I have always wanted to have one for myself and luckily, I had just enough quartersawn white oak to complete this table. When I was done with the rough cuts I only had 2 feet of 4/4 quartersawn white oak left.

The plan for this project came out of Robert Lang's More Shop Drawings for Craftsman Furniture , these books are a great resource for anyone interested in making authentic Arts and Crafts style furniture. Robert includes a drawing of the sides with their irregular shapes in a grid that can be reproduced by creating a 1 inch by 1 inch grid on a sheet of posterboard and transferring the drawing to that. I used this posterboard pattern to create a template out of plywood for both the sides and the shelf.

Taking the panels out of the clamps this morning and scraping off the excess glue the first thing I did was to trace the patterns onto the panels. I then cut proud of the line on the bandsaw for both the shelf and the side panels.

I attched the pattern to the cut our of the shelf using a couple of screws making sure to attach it to the underside of the shelf. This lets me pattern route it on the router table without worrying about the pattern slipping as can happen using double sided tape.

I make sure to label all my templates, jigs, and patterns with not only the name, but any directions and dimensions for the project. The sides call for a taper on both sides and a bevel cut at just under 45 degrees. The trick to this, which Mr. Lang does not describe in his book, is to create two jigs to enable you to easily repeat the cuts on the table saw.

I created these jigs using the template for the side. For the first jig I placed the template top up on the plywood and aligned the right side with the edge. I then attached blocks to hold the stock in place around the template. I adjusted the fence so that the bevel cut would be at the correct location and ran the stock through for all four sides. I labeled the jig with the name and the stock dimensions as well as the settings for the blade angle and the fence.

The second jig is made by placing the top of the template to the other end and aligning the edge of the template with the edge of the plywood. Again attaching blocks to hold the stock in place. Adjusting the fence so the the width of the bottom of the side is 15 inches, I run the stock through, and repeated for the other sides. I labeled this jig just as I did the first one. When I was done I trimmed off the excess plywood at the bottom of both jigs to make future cuts easier.
With the cuts complete I traced the cutouts on the stock and using the bandsaw roughed them out. They will be finished on the router table like the shelf.

When routing a template make sure that you use a starter pin to keep from getting kickback when the stock comes in contact with the spinning bit. When possible router with the grain and not against it. If that is not possible, try to sneak up on the cuts against the grain and not cut into it all at once.

One trick I use if I have to cut against the grain is to take little bites out of the stock with the bit to create breaks so that the spinning bit will not cause too much tearout. I still find that I am left with tearout, but its contained and rather than ruin the piece I'm left with a small defect that can be cleaned up using a spokeshave and some sandpaper.

With the sides beveled and shaped I like to do my first dryfit before I get too far into sanding and trimming in case I need to make any changes. Luckily everything fit nicely.

I used a Ryoba saw and a chisel to clean up the round corners left by the router bit. I then sanded the shelf and sides down to 100 grit. I tilted the blade on the tablesaw 3 degrees and cut a bevel on the bottom of the sides so that they would sit flush on the bottom. I then did a second dryfit, this time including the shelf. I cut the top to its final size, 19 inches square and called it a day.

"If you spend your whole life waiting for the storm, you'll never enjoy the sunshine." ~Morris West