Welcome to Gus’ Guild! A blog dedicated to sharing information about building Arts and Crafts furniture. From designing to finishing we’ll eventually cover every aspect. So sit back and enjoy the journey; or sit up and drop me a line–feedback and comments are always welcome.

Stu’s Woodworks is excited to announce that hobbyist, advanced woodworkers, and Arts and Crafts enthusiast alike will now be able to learn the art of designing and building authentic Arts and Crafts furniture from principle designer and craftsman Stewart Crick. Stu will bring his awarding winning design skills and exceptional craftsmanship to Kelly Mehler’s School of Woodworking beginning in the 2010. Students will experience building solidly constructed Arts and Crafts furniture; traditional dovetailed drawers; bread-board table tops; and hand-fitting joints using traditional tools and techniques.

For class details please go here.

	Front Leg	Back Leg

I recently gained access to some original L & JG Stickley Furniture. Shown here are two legs from either a model 709 or 709 ½ Sideboard, circa 1910.  You can clearly see the 5-piece construction that L & JG Stickley made famous. It is consistent with the L & JG Stickley catalog drawing shown (though not properly credited) in my April 17^th post on Making Arts and Crafts legs. Also visible is a round mortise drilled to hold one half of a “figure 8” clip, commonly used to attach tops

	L & JG Stickley Model 709 Sideboard

The back leg shows a grove which was used to house the panels of the sideboard’s back. Both legs show that the mortise and tenons of the rails were not haunched. While not evident in these images, the mortise and tenons were pinned.

As an admirer of Greene and Greene furniture, I’ve always been interested in the housed tenon-a joint that was used extensively throughout their furniture, and anecdotally, it appears to have been used exclusively by them. Several folks have told me the Greene’s employed this joint because of the strength it added to joints; and others believe it was employed because it all but guaranteed that, if throughout its life a piece of furniture experienced significant wood movement, a gap would not open between legs and rails, splats, spindles, or crests. It’s easy to say that this additional strength and anti-gap insurance are reasonable features given the prices the Greens were charging. But there are too many others craftsman from this era (i.e.: Charles Rolfs, William Price, Elbert Hubbard etc) who in my mind were just as concerned with the quality and strength characteristics of their furniture who did not use the housed tenon. I wonder why?

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Photo 1

This tip presents some helpful information for those buying quarter sawn white oak. I’ll talk about what to look for, and answer some common questions that arise.

Stickley and other manufacturers of Arts and Crafts furniture used quarter sawn white oak because it was stable, inexpensive, and in abundant supply. I use it because it is the wood, most associated with Arts and Crafts era furniture; and I also enjoy the unique ray fleck patterns it presents. Quarter-sawn white oak is also representative, albeit on a national level, of a local material, which is consistent with the movement’s philosophies.

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Photo 1:Various shaper cutters and a router

Whether using a shaper or a router table, setting up a locking miter bit is the same. While it’s a simple 3 step process, you should take this set up seriously. Because like its cousin the miter joint, there’s no room for error with the locking miter joint–if you don’t get it dead-on, it won’t look good. But unlike the miter joint, it can be fixed, if it’s a little off. Read the rest of this entry »

Perhaps the most alluring aspects of Arts and Crafts furniture is working with quarter sawn white oak and the unique ray fleck patterns it presents. A particular challenge of featuring the distinctive ray fleck patterns is presented by the leg-a table leg, Morris chair leg, or side board leg-and how to make oak’s ray fleck pattern visible on all four sides. Read the rest of this entry »

This past weekend I had the pleasure of hanging-out with Wood Magazine’s Jim Heavey. I first met Jim Thursday night-he was the headliner at the Washington Woodworkers Guild of the National Capital Area’s monthly meeting. Jim gave an excellent talk on how to select, apply, and care for finishes. To his credit, Jim is one of those rare speakers who can walk into a room full of woodworkers with no slides or visual aids– just a couple of finish samples, and keep a crowd captivated, and on their seat edges all night long; which is exactly what he did. Read the rest of this entry »

The April/May issue of American Woodworker is out! You may notice a framiliar Arts and Crafts bedside table on the cover. Starting on Page 39 is an article I’ve written on building a bedside table. It includes step-by-step instruction on incorporating spindles and panels into your Arts and Crafts furniture, making breadboard tops, and a second article on making four-sided quartersawn legs on a router table. This is a great project for learning how to make many Arts and Crafts elements!

I make  Arts and Crafts style legs from four pieces of quarter-sawn white oak to maximize the ray-fleck pattern on all four sides. I also try and cut the four pieces from the same board, allowing the grain pattern to wrap around the leg. I use a locking miter joint, cut on a shaper, to assemble the legs. Sometimes, when gluing and clamping the legs, the locking miter joint does not close up completely. Whether from too much glue in the joint, insufficient clamping pressure, or some unexplainable force–maybe karma–I get an unattractive gap in the leg. Normally, this gap won’t be more than a 1/16″, and can easily be closed with a simple burnishing procedure. Read the rest of this entry »

Through mortise and tenons are a popular style of Arts and Crafts joinery, regularly seen in Morris chairs, sideboards, and various case pieces. In this post I’ll show the version I used in my footstool, which can easily be adapted to the mentioned furniture.

As with all of my technique posts, I’ll primarily focus on the process. Mentioning my favorite step-by-step techniques along the way; my hope is that you will choose the step-by-step techniques that make sense for you. The goal of this process is to produce a through mortise and tennon that is tight, and has crisp (i.e.: not rounded over) mortised shoulders. Read the rest of this entry »