Stickley Footstool, Part 3

The Stickley footstool is finished and in place next to the extra large Morris chair. I finished it to match the chair and used matching fabric for the cushion. Pam was very happy when I bought it into the house and immediately curled up with her book in the chair.

One of the most rewarding things about being a woodworker is making high quality furniture for your home. I'm slowly filling my home and those of my friends with furniture that I've made. You can't find furniture like this in most stores and if you do you can't afford it. It gives me a huge amount of satisfaction to take rough boards and transform them into fine furniture.

As long as you derive inner help and comfort from anything, keep it. - Mahatma Gandhi

Stickley Footstool, Part 2

I spent this weekend finishing up the Stickley Footstool, I decided that since it was just a single drawer that it would be faster and easier to hand cut the dovetails instead of setting up the Leigh jig for half blind and through dovetails. Well... I underestimated how difficult it would be to cut the half blind pins in quartsawn white oak. My first attempt turned out great, nice tight fit and everything, the second side however was sloppy, so I gave up for the afternoon on Friday and walked away.

Saturday morning I cut a fresh drawer side out of poplar and carefully lined up the pins and gave it a good whack with a mallet. This left a perfect impression of the pins on the tail board. I carefully cut out the tails and had a perfect fit, I may switch and use this method to begin with instead of cutting the tails and marking them on the pin board. I ran a groove around the bottom and inserted a 1/4 inch plywood bottom for the drawer.


From all the pictures I've found of the original the edges of the legs seem rounded over, so I installed a 1/8th inch quarter round bit in the router table and ran the leg sides and ends. I inserted 1/2 inch plywood into the grooves at the top and bottom and glued up the sides. Sunday I removed the drawer and footstool from the clamps. I trimmed the pins flush on the drawers with a low angle block plane and sanded everything smooth. Next comes the finish and some antique hardware that I picked up last winter in upstate NY. Instead of rapping the edge of the stool in leather and using tacks like the picture of the original I plan on upholstering a piece of plywood with 4 inch foam to fit inside the top.

"He has achieved success who has worked well, laughed often, and loved much." Elbert Hubbard

Stickley Footstool, Part 1

NOTE: Please be aware that the picture to the left is of a reproduction made my Kevin Creedy, I had thought the picture was from an auction catalog, it was also a Limbert, not a Stickley. I stand corrected.

This project is based on Stickley's "Smoker's Footstool", I guess back in the day when Dad got home he'd want to sit in his Morris Chair and puff on his pipe, basically smelling up the house and exposing his kids to the dangers of second hand smoke. Luckily things have changed somewhat in the hundred years since its debut and hopefully Dad's aren't smoking in the house. So I'm going to rename this "Reader's Footstool" as the drawer is a good place to keep your book safe and at hand.

I started with one board of 8 inch wide 4/4 quartersawn white oak and one board of 8/4 quartersawn white oak. I cut two lengths 18 inches and two lengths 15 inches. I jointed and planed the 8/4 inch stock to 1 3/4 inches thick and ripped 4 legs 1 3/4 inches square. I then ripped one of the 18 inch pieces to 1 1/2 inch, 4 inches and 2 1/4 inches for the top rail, drawer front, and bottom rail.

If you zoom in on this image you can see the cabinet maker's triangle that keeps the woodgrain aligned, this will help me keep the grain on the drawer in place with the top and bottom rails.
You will also notice that I used a dado blade to cut 3/4 inch long, 3/8 inch thick tenons on the ends all the sides but not the drawer front.

I reset the dado blade to 1/2 inch and ran a dado 3/4 inches from the top and 1 3/4 inches from the bottom on all four sides that will later receive 1/2 inch plywood. I used a bow to draw a nice arch on the bottom of all the sides and cut them on the bandsaw, cleaning up the sawmarks on the spindle sander.

Sometimes its just faster and easier to use a handtool to cut the shoulder's of the tenons, I could have used the bandsaw but I've found that it tends to over cut and leave a notch in the board, so I prefer the gentleman's saw.

I layed out the mortises to leave me with a 1/2 inch of leg sticking out past the sides. After installing the 3/8th inch mortising chisel and squaring it to the fence I aligned the fence so that if I ran each leg outside face towards the fence they would all be aligned correctly. Remember that the drawer face isn't mortised the whole width of the side but just for the top and bottom rail.

With the mortises cleaned out a little hand fitting with a shoulder plane gives the tenons a perfect slip fit. Here is the first dry fit, the next step is to cut the plywood top and bottom, install drawer guides and make the drawer. This project will be the perfect companion for a Morris Chair or anytime you want to just kick back.

"No man is good enough to be another's master." - William Morris

Stickley Coat Rack, Part 3, the end.

Today I completed the Stickley Coat Rack and took it over to my neighbor so that she could take it to her office. It turned out very nice and it was fun to make.

I installed some nice large antiqued bronze coat hooks, three on each side just like the original.

I used my favorite finishing recipe for arts and crafts furniture.

Sand piece to 150 grit and clean with tack rag or vacuum.
Wipe a good coat of dye on, be sure to cover all sides and keep dye from puddling in corners and at base. Leave to dry for at least 24 hours.
Lightly sand to remove raised grain with 220 grit, avoid oversanding especially at corners and edges.
Pad on a 1LB cut of amber shellac or sanding sealer.
Using a 320 grit sanding pad gently rub surface, clean with tack cloth or vacuum.
Apply Brown Mahogany Gel stain being careful to not cover too large of an area because once dry its very hard to wipe off. Once the gel starts to haze rub it off with a clean lint free cloth, I prefer old T-shirts. This gives you a warm rubbed in look. Let dry overnight.
Pad on 2-3 2LB cut coats of amber shellac, I tightly fold a square of T-shirt material, then soak it in the shellac and squeeze out excess, rub it in until it starts to drag then let dry. The coat of shellac should dry in 30 minutes or less. Repeat until you get the build you want.
Again, using 320 grit sanding pad gently rub surface, clean with a tack cloth or vacuum.
Take a few minutes to go over the whole piece with your clean hand, checking the surface for any rough areas or holidays.
Using a clean square of T-shirt rub in a thick coat of Watco Dark Liquid wax. Avoid plain or light colored waxes as these may leave white residue in the pores of the oak. When the wax is dry buff it out with a clean square of T-shirt.

I posted this in February but I wanted to revisit it because its been a while and people in the Woodwhisperer chat room have been asking me about it recently. As a reward for myself I picked up a L-N low angle block plane when I visited Woodcraft today, I've been wanting one for a while now.

Stickley Coat Rack, Part 2

This weekend's post starts with a little therapeutic planing Friday afternoon. I didn't have a lot of time but I really wanted to get in the shop and do something. I don't have any pictures but I planed the tapers on the uprights. The neat thing is that the best plane for this ended up being a wooden plane that I've been working on. My block plane is a little too narrow and my Stanley No. 4 wasn't holding a setting for some reason, so I pulled out my wooden smoothing plane, set the blade with a few taps on the wedge and went too it, next thing I know I'm ankle deep in shavings and the tapers are done. I'm really excited about this as this is the very first plane that I've tried to make. I've been playing with it, trying to decide the best shape for my hands. This was a great test and showed me some places on the plane where I want to adjust the shape.

Today I started with shaping the ends of the tenons, I mark a line around the tenon where it pokes out of the through mortise. I hold the pencil up a little about 1/16th of an inch and mark the line all the way around. After disassembly I mark a line down the center of the end of the tenon and a line on each end 1/2 the width of the tenon.

I use these lines as guides as I block plane the pyramid shape on the end of the tenon. I cut the ends first to avoid blowout. I then ran the block plane set a very thin shaving over the sides several times until I reached both lines. I turned the piece around in the vise and repeated the procedure. Repeating this for both sides of both cross pieces.

The next step is the joinery to attach the feet to the uprights of the coatrack. This operation is done on the routertable, I used a 1/2 inch mortising bit to remove the bulk of the material, testing the setting of the fence and checking using a scrap piece. The router bit is trapped inside the stock so stock control is very important. I used a stop block screwed to the fence of the router table to stop at proper spot and a feather board to hold the stock against the fence.
I then switched to a 14 degree 3/4 inch wide dovetail bit. After setting the depth and the fence and reinstalling the featherboard I ran the uprights past the bit easily. Here you have to remember that you can't lift the stock off the bit, you have to pull the stock back along the route it traveled.

Leaving the bit in place and at the same depth I pull the fence back and attack a sacrificial piece of 1/2 inch MDF to be used as a zero clearance fence. I then sneak up on the correct setting buy eye, run a scrap piece through cutting both sides and checking it, making the adjustment I need, again by eye, and re-running the scrap. Using this method I can usually get dead on in two or three adjustments, and its much easier then trying to measure and subtrack then adjusting the fence while measuring off the bit.

After the sliding dovetails are cut on the stock I cut the pattern that I had marked on the feet last weekend on the bandsaw. I then cut the excess dovetail from the top of the foot with a handsaw then shape the end to match the round end of the socket.

First I round the end with a sharp chisel, usually I just have to pare the endgrain off and remove the waste.

Next I undercut the end to match the angle of the dovetail while keeping the round shape of the socket






When you are done you should be able to slide the tenon into the socket and run it home with a few blows of a deadblow hammer. If you can't get the sliding dovetail at least half way in by hand its too tight and you need to trim the tenon some. If you slide it all the way in by hand its too loose and you can either start over, or you can fix it by gluing a strip of veneer to each side. I check and double check the tenon fit before I cut the final stock so I won't run into these problems at this step.
What you should end up with is a tight joint and a snug fit with no slop or play in the joint. Once you coat the sliding dovetail in glue it will slide in much easier.

After a final dryfit everyting was pulled apart and sanded at 100-120-150 grit. The feet were cleaned up on the oscillating spindle sander to remove the saw marks from the bandsaw and sanded with the rest of the parts. After a much needed break, its hot in Charleston in July, I glued the cross pieces to the uprights, then the feet to the uprights. The only clamps that were needed were to hold the uprights tight to the cross members.

The final assembly, sanded and glued. Tommorow I'll handsand the whole piece and start the finishing process. Or maybe I'll go to the beach, who knows.

"The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese." -Steven Wright

Stickley Coat Rack, Part 1

This weekend began the Stickley Coat Rack from the previous post. I spent a lot of time milling the lumber, the 8/4 Quartersawn White Oak that I had on hand was a little twisted and cupped so it began with a lot of work on the Joiner and with a Jack plane. Once it was close I ripped the stock down to just over 2 inches wide then let it sit flat on my workbench over night. The next day started with more passes on the joiner and to my surprise I ended up with two true square boards 1 3/4 x 1 3/4 x 72 inches.

I also milled some stock 1 1/2 inches thick for the feet and two pieces of 5/4 for the stretchers.

I made templates for the feet and the taper at the top of the posts out of some 1/2 MDF. I transferred the shapes onto the stock so that after the joinery I can cut out the shapes on the bandsaw.

The stretchers are through tenons so after cutting mortises through the uprights I cut long tenons on the crosspieces.

Here you can see how I cut the the shoulders off the tenons using the bandsaw.

After a little clean up using a shoulder plane for the tenons and a wide chisel for the mortises I did a dry fit of the stretchers.










Here are the through tenons in place, I marked each one so that I can trim the ends once I take it aparts and sand down the cross pieces.

Here is the dry fit of the of the uprights all done and waiting for me to come back next weekend. I need to decide how I'm going to join the feet to the uprights, shape and sand the feet and the cross stretchers.

"It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see"

Henry David Thoreau

New Project!!!!!

Slow to get back into the shop after my vacation I was looking around for something that I really wanted to build, my neighbor Michelle is an Audiologist and came to me asking if I could make her a coat rack for her office. She said that she didn't have much wall space and wanted something that would hold a few coats.
I did some looking through my Stickley catalogs and found this. Its called a costumer and may have been originally intended to go in a bed room instead of the hall way but I think it will work great and looks really cool. I like the double tree design and it fits her requirement or not being too wide at 14 inches. The base is 22 inches across so it will only sit out 10 inches from the wall.

I only had to small pictures from my books and no plans so I searched around on the internet and found these pictures and more that show details such as the through tenons for the stretchers. I've also found some hardware that was close to these. What I have to figure out is how the base and the uprights are attached, I could either cut a deep bridle joint on the uprights or use a mortise and tenon joint on each foot. The rest is pretty straight forward. Any thoughts on the joinery for the bottom would be greatly appreciated.

"Do your work with your whole heart, and you will succeed - there's so little competition."

Elbert Hubbard

Arts and Crafts Details: Corbels

This is the first in a series of posts on details of Arts and Crafts Furniture. Today I'm going to focus on the Corbel, its a curved wooden support that goes between the leg and the arm of a chair of sofa.

According to Wikipedia the word "corbel" comes from Old French and derives from the Latin corbellus, a diminutive of corvus (a raven) which refers to the beak-like appearance. Corbel is defined as a piece of stone jutting out of a wall to carry any superincumbent weight. For us, its a decorative addition that ties the arm to the leg.

Gustav Stickley used a small corbel on his morris chairs while his brother's designs used a more elongated corbel as seen here in my reproduction of their Prairie Style Sofa and also below in my L&JG Stickley Paddle arm Morris chair.

There are several ways that you could attach the corbels to your chair/sofa. You could drill through the corbel and screw it into the leg and plug the holes. You could use dowels to attach it. You could glue it directly to the leg/arm like I did on the Morris chair, since its a long grain to long grain match, careful aligning and clamping works well. My favorite method, which I used on the sofa, is to cut a dado down the leg with a router and a guide, and cut a long tongue on the back of the corbel. This method aligns the corbel correctly every time and provides for plenty of glue surfaces.

Once you decide on the size and shape of your corbel make a pattern out of plywood or MDF, trace the shape out on some nicely figured quartersawn white oak, cut on the band saw proud of the line. Attach the pattern to the stock using double sided tape and using a pattern routing bit run them on your router table. A little finish sanding and carefully glue the corbel in place. Nicely shaped and proportioned corbels will add a nice detail to your project.

"It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see." - Henry David Thoreau

Stickley #913 Harvey Ellis Dresser, Part Last

Well today was the day, this project if finally done. I have to say that this has been the most complex build I've even done. It was my first dresser and I learned some important lessons about making drawers. I had done my research on drawers and dressers and most of the experts said to cut the drawer faces to fit the carcass, then cut the dovetails, and plane them to fit. I think next time I am going to cut them to the size I want which would be the opening minus 1/16th of an inch all the way around for clearance. I ended up having to plane the sides of each drawer, spending about 6 hours fitting the drawers. They do fit nicely now, but while cutting them smaller to start won't give you that "piston fit" described in the literature it would save quite a bit of time and inches of plane shavings from the shop floor.

I ended up not needing center drawer guides with the snug fit of the drawers but I did install stops on the rear drawer rails to keep the drawers closing flush to the frame.

One more coat of Danish oil tomorrow and let it dry for a few days, finish with a coat of clear wax and its ready to be crated and shipped off.

The contrast between the dark, rich cherry and the light highly figured curly maple make this a very pretty piece. The cherry knobs bring it all together, tying the drawers to the carcass nicely. The knobs on the bottom drawers will darken to match the top ones that have been getting sunlight for a few weeks while the bottom knobs sat on my countertop in the back of the shop.

This piece was originally designed by Harvey Ellis in his short but fruitful tenure with Gustav Stickley and has been produced by the Stickley company in its various itterations since then. The original was made in Quartersawn White Oak with a back splash on the top. This version is closer to the modern product produced by the Stickley Company.

I hope it finds many years of use in its new home, it was fun to make and quite the learning experience. Now for something less complex and a little easier......

"Happiness is not a goal; it is a by-product." Eleanor Roosevelt

Stickley #913 Harvey Ellis Dresser, Quick update

Sunday I didn't have alot of time in the shop but there was something I wanted to do. I finish sanded each of the small drawers inside and out. I hand sanded the drawer fronts to 220 grit. I marked the center of the drawers and drilled a hole for the 2 inch cherry pulls.

Once the pulls were installed I applied a coat of Danish oil on the drawer fronts. The oil turned the cherry knobs the same tone as the carcass and really brought out the curl in the maple. I liked the look so much that I had to take some pictures and make a quick update. So click on the pictures on the left for a larger version.

Hope you have a nice week.

"Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible."

Dalai Lama

Stickley #913 Harvey Ellis Dresser, Part 5

This week's post covers a few days, my mother is visiting and I took the week off from work to spend some time with her but there was some time for playing in the shop.

The first thing I did was to make the back panel for the dresser, I could have used one piece of plywood or I could have made it out of ship lapped boards but keeping with the two tone look of the piece I decided to go with a frame and panel. I cut the rails and stiles to length and ran a 1/4 inch x 1/2 inch groove one one side of each and a groove on each side of the center stile. I cut 1/2 inch long tenons on the sides of the stiles to fit in the grooves of the rails. A little glue and some clamps and Bob's your uncle.

Once dry and sanded I couple of coats of Danish oil to match the carcass were applied. I need access to the inside to install and adjust the drawer guides so I drilled a few countersunk screw holes in the sides and screwed the back to the carcass.

These are the fronts for the drawers cut and trimmed to size layed out and marked for position. I was lucky enough to find a wide board of curly maple long enough to get all three of the bottom drawers from. The top 6 drawers also came from one board. I used maple for the drawer sides and for the smaller drawers I went with 3/8 inch thick stock that I had resawn from 4/4 stock.

I set up the half blind dovetails on my Leigh Dovetail Jig, what you see here is the new Leigh Vacuum Router Support that attaches to the shopvac and captures most of the shavings from the router. Before when I routed dovetails with the jig I would end up standing in a pile of sawdust, I have to say that this is a very useful addition to the Leigh system.

Once all the dovetails were routed, half blind for the front and through dovetails for the rear, I cut a 1/4 inch groove around the bottom inside of the pieces. I then sized 1/4 inch birch plywood to fit inside the grooves. Once everything was sanded I glued up the drawers using blocks to distribute the force of the clamps.

Here we have all six drawers, sanded, glued and clamped standing in line like good little drawers.
The nice thing was that the dovetail jig only had to be set up once and I was able to route all six drawers, with the larger drawers each one is a different height so the jig has to be set up for each one.

Today I unclamped the drawers and planed and sanded the dovetails flush. The large benchtop belt sander made quick work of flushing the back through dovetails. I then planed each the sides of each drawer to fit.

I wanted a tight fit on the drawers so I made the front and sides full height of the openings and planed each one to fit. Once all six drawers had been fit I was left with a nice pile of very thin maple shavings. Thank goodness for sharp tools.

The end product all fit and sliding nicely, a little finish sanding and a couple of coats of natural Danish Oil and this is going to look fantastic. The drawers are all going to receive 2 inch round cherry pulls. Three more drawers and a little bit of finish and this one is done.

"It is not how much one makes but to what purpose one spends."

John Ruskin