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.

Thanks to Bret, Peggy, Bruce, Mike, Lowell, Mark, Rudy, and Guy–a great bunch of very enthusiastic woodworkers– for making the first Arts & Crafts Table with Stewart Crick class a huge success at Kelly Mehler’s School of Woodworking.

A special thank you to Kelly and Terri for the opportunity to have this class. Any one who wanted to attend, but couldn’t, mark March 2011 on your calendar, that’s when we’ll hold the class again at Kelly Mehler’s School of Woodworking. Watch Kelly’s website for 2011 schedule, coming out this October for details.

Templates are one of the Holy Grails of woodworking. If you desire repeatability and consistency, templates (along with jigs in other applications) are the best way to go. They’re easy to make, reduce what (without there existence) would be a lengthy, and possible complex process to a simpler, shorter process, and can be made from a variety of readily available, inexpensive materials. They’re also a great substitute for hand-skills and tools that have not yet been acquired.

In my work, templates are used for two purposes; the first I call a tracing-template, is for transferring or laying out patterns to stock. This purpose may or may not require the template to be temporarily attached to the stock. Guiding-templates are employed to guide the bearing of a flush-trim bit. This operation requires a more robust template that can withstand the stresses of multiple application and removals, while providing a healthy edge to register a flush-trim bearing.

Read the rest of this entry »

When building Arts and Crafts furniture that requires a top, I always find myself wondering which tabletop fastener to use. To be historically accurate, in most situation, I should probably be using figure-8 hardware as Gustav Stickley did on many pieces; but the woodworker in me enjoys making wooden buttons. To help with the selection, making, and installing of tabletop fasteners, one of Woodcraft Magazine‘s Senior Editors, Paul Anthony has written a great article that lays out the how and why of wooden buttons, Z-clips, and Figure-8 hardware. It appears in the June/July (Vol. 6/No. 35) issue of Woodcraft Magazine, and now in my “Book of Knowledge;” More on that later…

When I make legs, usually the last step is drilling the holes that will act as mortises for the pegs used to secure mortise and tenons joints. These hole passes through a mortise creating the possibility of tear-out as the drill bit both enters and exits the mortise.

Nice crisp edges!

At first thought, this doesn’t seem like a big deal; there will be a tenon hiding the tear-out and no one will see it. However, if the tear-out is too great it can lead to a loosely fitting peg that may eventually allow the joint to move, let the joint open, exposing an unsightly gap, or later become loose. An easy way to avoid this problem is to use a backer-tenon when drilling the holes.
Read the rest of this entry »

Remember when you were young, with hair and no stomach paunch, and your hammer and workbench were made by Fisher-Price? A time when there was no greater pleasure than picking up a hammer and just whaling away for hours, just beating the crap out of something? It was the purest of pleasures, and drove your parents crazy. Man, it was fun. Without a time machine, making pins for your Arts and Crafts inspired furniture is the closest you’ll get to re-living that experience.

Read the rest of this entry »

Front Leg

Back Leg

I recently had 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?

Read the rest of this entry »

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.

Read the rest of this entry »

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 »