Arts & Crafts Bookshelves - Complete!

This project was a wedding gift for my sister-in-law and her husband.  They got married in July, but I've been busy juggling the house project at the same time, so let's just call it better late than never.

This was my first keyed tenon.  I had to make a 7° angle jig for a plunge router, which only served to remind me how much I dislike using routers.  If I felt confident, or healthy enough (I've been sick pretty consistently since Thanksgiving with my seasonal allergies), I may have attempted it by hand, but I just didn't have the energy and needed the project done. 

The joints turned out nice and I was super impressed with how tightly that wedge can pull those shelves against the sides -- enough to dent the wood slightly.  I'll have to find a use for this joint again.  I like it.

She chose Stickley's Onondaga finish.  Hmm... not sure what else to say about this project.

So here are the photos.

Meanwhile...

Work continues on my brother's house.  I put together a 51" x 61" black walnut butcherblock countertop for his kitchen island.

And I've got a desk top to flatten and smooth still.

Desk Top

And as if I didn't have enough going on, my sister-in-law is getting married.  I'm making her a set of Stickley reproduction bookcases.

Quartersawn White Oak

Arts & Crafts End Table Design

It happens every time I design something and walk away for a few months.  When I finally look at the idea again, it's not quite good enough.  

Make a bunch of cubic rectangles and put them together, right?

This was my first "final" draft.

My original "final" design from several months ago.

It didn't take long for me to get sick of it.  It's too blocky, too thick.  It needs refining.

Spindles!  Just say no!

I spent another week on it and came up with a spindle version which became the next "final" draft.

Final Draft #2

I added a bevel to the underside of the top to lighten things up a bit, played around for awhile trying to find a spindle pattern that wasn't too plain, removed the double tenons and added a slotted dovetail drawer blade.   This remained for 3 or 4 months as the plan.

Fast-forward to today.  I opened the Sketchup model again and can't shake the feeling that I still hate how boxy and heavy it looks.  I also hate dusting between spindles and swore I'd never build spindle furniture.  I thought it needed something, but this isn't it.  It's too dark, too heavy, too boxy.

Fix it! But how?

One proven strategy for lightening the look of pieces like this is to taper the legs, but no.  I'll save that for the Shaker bedroom set I'm going to build for the boys.

Flare the legs out?  Definitely not.  For our taste, some of the Mackintosh pieces are too wide-bodied, and the Asian-inspired Arts & Crafts fusion isn't our bag.

The main reason we avoid these more vocal styles is that we're trying to find a universal aesthetic that fits with the rest of our home, even as styles change.  The end tables need to match the coffee table (already built) and everything needs to blend in with craftsman, rustic, lodge or whatever decor my wife decides to fill the room with.

A lot of Arts & Crafts furniture is big, boxy, heavy, bulky, strong, solid.  I think the real exercise here is to stay within the Arts & Crafts genre, but be as airy and lightweight as possible.  This is probably why we lean toward the Harvey Ellis style with his graceful and uplifting arcs.

I spent a good few hours today nudging things around.  I decreased the thickness of the top from 1" to 3/4" and that lightened it quite a bit.  I raised the skirt to add a bit more air underneath and deepened the arcs to increase the uplifting effect.  Instead of having a plank spanning the entire width of the table, I left room on each side to let even more air and light through.

At one point I had the plank through-mortised into the front and back skirts, but decided it added too much noise, drawing too much attention to itself.

Through-tenons on the plank.  I found it distracting.

We're trying to maintain a bird's eye view of the entire living room set across several years of separation (as I'm rather slow at building things).  Every stylistic decision here would have to carry through to the other pieces of my living room set.  So she also vetoed the Limbert-style gridwork plank approach I toyed around with at one point, too.

The latest "final" draft.

 Right now I feel pretty good about this.  I'll let it simmer for a week and come back to it with fresh eyes and see if it needs more tweaking.  Lots of Golden Ratio dimensioning again, because it's fun.  In the future I want to play around with Jim Tolpin's By Hand & Eye approach.

Flip Top Table is Complete!

Final Assembly.  Just need to position the top and screw on the cleats. 

Let's take her for a spin!

Leg / Apron Joinery Detail

Drink the Kool-Aid!  Clock your screws!

Barley says "Hi."

So that they'll know, 100 years from now, that two brothers were close. 

Flip Top Finishing!

Stickley Aurora Finishing Schedule:

1. Sand to 120 grit
2. Vacuum clean
3. Dampen all surfaces with hot water, let dry completely
4. Sand to 180 grit
5. Vacuum clean
6. Flood with TransFast Aniline Dye (Antique Cherry Brown, 1 oz by weight powder to 3 quarts water)
7. Wipe dry, let dry completely

Aniline Dye going on

Aniline dye dries pink and chalky.  Don't freak out! 

 8. Flood with boiled linseed oil, let sit for 5 minutes, wipe dry, let cure for a day or two

Boiled Linseed Oil adds depth and luster.

 9. Shellac to lock those two layers in and protect them from what's coming next.

Shellac as a barrier coat.

 10. Rub on General Finishes Antique Walnut Gel Stain, let haze, scrub off so there's no smears.  Let dry completely.

Gel stain going on.

Gel stain applied and dried.

11. Apply a moderate coat of General Finishes Arm-R-Seal Satin Oil & Polyurethane.  Apply with a cotton cloth with the grain.  Let dry completely.

12. Lightly scuff sand with 320 grit.

13. Poly coat #2.  Let dry completely.
14. Scuff sand 320 grit.
15. Poly coat #3.  Let dry completely.
16. Scuff sand 320 grit.
17. Light poly coat #4, make it perfect. Let dry completely.
18. Rub with grey nonwoven fiber pad to a dull, even sheen.
19. Apply paste wax, let haze, buff with clean cotton rag to a shine (pictured below).

Done!

Flip Top Table Slide System

For anyone unfamiliar with what a flip top table does, check out this video.  Take your time.  I'll wait.
M'kay?  Good.

So I went to the Stickley showroom and took some photos of how they put their table together.  I'll leave those photos here, just for the sake of being thorough, but the one to pay attention to is the view from underneath the table.

This is the important photo, at least for this blog post.

Alright, so Stickley uses two guide rails positioned 6" from the inside face of the aprons, with 1 cleat on each guide rail attached toward the center of the table (rather than on the apron side of the guide rail).

Then they have a center stiffener and crosspiece separator to keep everything uniformly parallel and prevent any bending or bowing during the life of the table.  They used pocket screws to attach the separator to the guide rails, and notched the separator up into the stiffener.  This is necessary because the guide rails really need to stay parallel to one another to avoid impeding the smooth action of the slide.

I changed a few details from Stickley's method, not because I think I know better, but because I like to solve a puzzle by finding my own solution... and I like to overbuild.

I didn't like the guide rails so far out toward the aprons - mainly because of seasonal wood movement in the table top.  With their cleat arrangement, if the table top expands in humid months, the cleats will push against those guide rails making sliding more difficult.  Worst case, they'll prevent the table top from expanding and worse problems may arise.

In all likelihood, quarter sawn white oak won't expand that much to be a problem.  I calculated the seasonal wood movement to be ~1/4" across a 40" wide table top of quarter sawn white oak.  That's not much, but I'm weird, so I chose to hazard on the side of caution.

I chose to position my guide rails at 1/3's of the width of the table base.  My thinking is that it more evenly distributes the racking forces on a table and it moves the cleats a little more toward the center of the table top, where wood movement effects more minimal.  Also, by having my cleats on the apron-side of each guide rail, if the table top expands, the cleats just move away from the guide rails a little bit.  No big deal and no wood is prevented from moving when it wants to.

From underneath you'll notice that I'm using double tenons to attach the guide rails to the aprons, instead of a sliding dovetail that Stickley uses.   I am using a sliding dovetail to attach the stiffener, though.  And my separator isn't pocket screwed to the sides of the guide rails.  I'm going to dovetail it instead.  Overkill, but I like dovetails.  They're pretty.

Stickley screwed in their corner blocks.  I'm gonna dovetail mine in.  I've never done a dovetail on a 45° angle before.  Should be fun.  If it doesn't work out, I can always get out the drill.  :-)

So that's what I'm working on now.  Stay tuned for more.

Cheval Mirror

A wedding gift for Brandi...

I told Brandi that I wanted to make her something for her wedding present and she got to pick. She said her father had a dressing mirror her whole life and that she always wanted one of her own. We looked through a few different styles and she picked the one made by Stickley - which worked out well for me as that's the one I wanted to make anyway.

I took my time on this one. I had to. Those storage coffee tables were painful and arduous. I really like how this mirror turned out and it helps that I have fond memories of the gradual way it came together.

Which isn't to say that there weren't a few hiccups along the way. The angled mortises were tricky. My first attempt to drill an angled mortise in one of the legs resulted in the hollow chisel blowing straight through the outer face of the leg. Luckily I had extra wood.

If I could do it over again, I'd pick a thinner bevel on the mirror. I wasn't sure how it would look when I ordered it, and in hindsight, it could've been a little less pronounced. No big deal though.