Recently, I had the pleasure of listening to a talk given by Gene Landon for the Rochester Woodworkers Society. Gene is a world famous woodworker specializing in 18th Century American furniture reproductions. He has been featured in Fine Woodworking many times over the years and also teaches woodworking classes at the Old Mill Cabinet Shoppe in York, PA.
Gene’s talk was a photo tour of his home and wood shop in Pennsylvania. His home is filled with period furniture reproductions as well as raised panels and intricate trim work adorning the walls, all built by Gene in the 31 years that he and his wife have been there. The furniture pieces range from a spice box and a candle stand to numerous chairs, clocks, tables and case goods. All of the furniture was reproduced after taking careful measurements and rubbings from originals. Gene has done period reproductions of many styles, including both Newport and Philadelphia though he gravitates to the Philadelphia pieces because he feels that they represent the best from the 18th century.
Gene learned about the way these historic pieces were originally built from previously doing hundreds of restorations. As a result, his building methods are all authentic to the way the pieces were originally done. In his words: “if you are going to copy, you should copy the original methods as well as the designs”. In his work Gene only will only do a bit of roughing out with machine tools, everything else is done by hand. For finishes, he typically uses only shellac and sometimes a bit of boiled linseed oil. However, if a piece needs to be darkened he will use a stain made from soaking Walnut husks in water for some time until a dark pigment is obtained.
It was only after seeing Gene’s house full of beautiful furniture – something that would probably take the average woodworker five lifetimes to create, even with power tools – that I found out that not only was he doing those pieces for his home but, he was also doing commissions all along at the same time. He says that he always has several projects going in the shop at one time – that’s a situation that I’m sure most of us can relate to, though achieving the level of production that he has is another story. One great quote from Gene was: “I run out of gas before I run out of enthusiasm” – as far as I can see, he seems to still be going strong!
Gene is a long time contributor to the Society of American Period Furniture Makers (SAPFM) and helped to establish it’s Cartouche Award – an award that recognizes an individual or organization whose achievements best reflect the mission of SAPFM – in fact the award itself is a bronze of the carved crown from a Philadelphia tall case clock that Gene built. After helping to establish the award, Gene was a honored as a recipient in 2003.
In addition to his furniture making, Gene is also an accomplished carver/sculptor. He showed a magnificent carved eagle that he has created out of part of the last living Liberty Tree – a Tulip Poplar that stood during the Revolution. The eagle is now displayed in Constitution Hall in Philadelphia and will eventually go to the Smithsonian. Gene has also built Bible boxes for both President Carter and President George W. Bush. Also from the Liberty tree, Gene carved busts of Presidents Washington and Lincoln and these were recently presented to President Bush at the White House.
As I stated earlier, Gene has been teaching at the Old Mill Cabinet Shoppe for the last 15 years. He continues to do so, teaching there about 12 times a year. All of his classes stress the traditional methods of work and concentrate on period reproductions. Though I have not done any period furniture in the past, taking a class with Gene is something that I’d really like to do at some point in the future. In fact, after hearing Gene’s talk and seeing his work and accomplishments, I am inspired to try a period piece. Coming up I’ll be doing just that and posting here on a new project: a Pennsylvania Side Table with Cabriole legs. So, look for it in the near future.
As always, if you have comments or questions, please either leave theme here with the comments link at the end of the post, or email me at thecraftsmanspath@gmail.com.
Tags: Gene Landon, period furniture, Rochester Woodworkers Society
Lately, I have not had as much time in the shop as I would like. Lots of outdoor chores and other duties have been taking precedence. I did get a bit of time though, and decided to make a couple of small boxes out of some offcuts, using a nice piece of curly maple for the tops that I have had hanging around the shop for a while.
The boxes were made from Cherry offcuts with Walnut for the splines and handles and the aforementioned Curly Maple for the tops. The bottoms were cut from some Poplar that I had left over from some drawers on a prior case piece.
The boxes measure approximately 3.5″ high by 9″ wide by 3.5″ deep. The sides for each box were cut from a single piece of stock so that the grain on the sides runs continuously around each box. The mitered corners were all cut with a shop built miter sled on the table saw. The tops and bottoms fit into grooves cut into the sides on the table saw. The top pieces have a simple rebate and the bottoms were beveled with a block plane to fit into these grooves.
After the tops, bottoms and all of the sides were cut, all of the parts were sanded so that the inside faces would be ready for finish after assembly. This would be difficult to do afterward. The sides were laid out against my table saw rip fence and taped tightly together along each miter seam with masking tape. Then, glue was applied to the miters. The tops and the bottoms were inserted (no glue, just floating) and the sides were folded around them to form the box. After checking for square, the last miter seam was taped and the box glue-ups were left to dry.
Once the glue was dry, the groves were cut for the Walnut splines to reinforce the mitered corners. Because the mitered corners are mainly end grain, this glue bond is not very strong. So, adding splines really helps to reinforce these joints by adding some long-grain glue surface. The groves for the splines were cut using a shop made sled for the table saw. The Walnut that I used for the splines was planed with a block plane to fit into the grooves. Once a good fit was achieved, it was cut into triangular pieces which were glued into the grooves. After the glue had dried the splines were trimmed flush with a sharp chisel.
The box tops were cut off with the band saw between the top two splines and the cut areas were cleaned up with a block plane. I next measured for the hinges in the tops and bottoms and cut the hinge mortises with a sharp chisel. For the the box handles, I decided to use a couple of little pieces of Walnut and to do some simple carving leaving them with rough tooled surface. These handles were simply glued on to the outsides of the boxes with no other fasteners or joinery. To complete the construction, the boxes were sanded through 220 grit.
For a finish, I wet sanded in a couple of coats of Watco Danish Oil (natural) with 600 grit wet/dry paper. The oil was wiped on, sanded in, wiped off and left to dry. After the second coat of oil had dried I used some Zinsser Seal Coat Shellac on the inside of the boxes to seal in the oil and eliminate any oil smells in the future. The exterior of the boxes received three coats of General Finishes Arm-R-Seal thinned 50/50 with naptha, wiped on and scuffed sanded with 400 grit paper between coats.
These boxes were fun to do and got me a little time in the shop. Sometimes these small projects are nice to do as a break from large furniture efforts. They go together fairly quickly and allow you to use up nice scraps of wood that you have been saving for a rainy day. These boxes are themselves twins and they will be going to my twin daughters to keep some of their treasures in.
I’d enjoy hearing what you think about the boxes and the web site – good and bad. Please let me know your thoughts – you can contact me at thecraftsmanspath@gmail.com or leave comments here using the comments link at the end of the post.
Tags: cherry, curly maple, splined keyed miter, walnut, wooden boxes
Recently, there was an ad placed in one of our local papers about a sale of tools and lumber from a woodworking shop. Given that the address listed in the ad was not too far from my home, I thought I’d make the short trip there to see what was available. So, early last Saturday morning that’s what I did.
My hopes in making this trip were that there might be some unusually good deals to be had on tools or hardwood lumber. I usually hear about these kinds of things after they have already passed or when I am not available to visit them. So, I was excited to be able to go and see what great deals there might be. Driving there, I was not sure of the circumstances of this sale – I thought that it could be a liquidation of a woodworking business that had closed it’s doors.
When I arrived at the address along a rural country road, I saw a house surrounded by thick woods with several outbuildings on the property. I thought to myself that maybe someone had a woodworking business that they ran out of their house, but were retiring or something. I walked down the driveway and followed the signs around the side of the house and down through a Bilco door into the basement. When I entered, I saw what looked like a typical home woodworkers basement shop.
In the first room that I entered, there were tools laid out on tables and several racks of various types of hardwood lumber neatly stacked all along one side. As I continued, I saw a shop made router table, some hand saws and also some hand-held power tools. I decided that I would pass through the entire shop first to get a feel for what was there and then go back to look closer at things of interest. Moving on into the second room of the shop, I saw an assortment of stationary power tools, shop made jigs, clamps, and hanging cabinets. Above a desk in the room there were clippings of furniture pictures from magazines that presumably were inspirations for future projects. Looking around, I could see the evidence of many years of woodworking in just about every corner of the shop.
As I continued to wander through the shop looking at the tools, wood and jigs, I overheard some conversations regarding the circumstances of the sale. It turns out that this was the home workshop of a lifelong woodworker that had recently passed away. His daughters were utilizing the services of a friend to help liquidate his shop. This woodworking gentleman had milled his own lumber and even had a dehumidification kiln in one of the outbuildings on the property where he had dried his own wood. I was told that he had a long history of making beautiful things out of wood for their home. Looking at the shop made jigs and cabinets, it was evident that this man had a passion for working with wood and took great pride in his work.
As I continued my tour of the shop, my thoughts drifted away from the specific things for sale and onto the legacy of this woodworker that I had never known. I couldn’t help but think of the countless hours that must have been spent enjoying the craft in that basement shop, the jigs that were precisely made and the wood that was skillfully dried for projects to come. At the same time, it was both sad to see the dismantling of this shop but uplifting to hear about the legacy that this man had left behind in the things he had made for his family and friends.
I would imagine that a love of the craft and the legacy of our creations is a common bond that connects all woodworkers, whether professional or amateur. What’s interesting is that I went on this trip expecting to see and obtain certain material things but, in the end I saw and acquired something else. Something on a completely different level.
I did end up buying a couple of things from this sale but, I went home with something both material and something intangible. I saw both the tools and the legacy of a woodworker who obviously loved what he did and did what he loved. Hopefully, I’ll be able to carry that legacy forward in projects of my own while using a few tools from this woodworker that I had never known.
Every year the woodworking club that I belong to (the Rochester Woodworkers Society) hosts a series of guest speakers. The speakers usually do a lecture on Friday night and on Saturday they sometimes do a workshop for the club members.
Last night, we had the pleasure of having Kelly Mehler speak to our club. If you are not familiar with Kelly, he is a frequent contributor to Fine Woodworking. He has also written several books and done a few instructional videos. He is most noted for his book and video: “The Table Saw Book” and “Mastering your Table saw“. During his lecture he kidded that as a result of this book and video he has now become known as the “table saw guy”! This was not something that he was aiming for but he doesn’t mind it. I can tell you that Kelly’s book and video were some of the first things I read/viewed when I started woodworking and I found them to be a very good source of information for the beginner.
Kelly’s lecture started with a brief history of his woodworking career. In his early twenties, he lived in Cincinnati and had a strong interest in woodworking. He said that he was young and inexperienced and did not know what a hard road it might be to pursue a career in the craft – that’s probably what allowed him forge ahead and pursue it. He decided that if he went to school to learn the craft then he might be able to eventually teach and he could also make and sell custom furniture which is what he really wanted to do. So, Kelly moved to Kentucky to attend a technical college in Berea (where he still lives).
After a time at the college he decided to quit school and start his custom woodworking business in a building that formerly housed an car dealership. That first shop was where he got discovered by Fine Woodworking and in fact his videos were actually shot there. Fast forward to today, after a long and successful career in woodworking Kelly has sold that first shop building and built a new shop and school on land adjacent to his home in Berea. Kelly says that the only furniture he builds now is for his home (by order of his wife). He concentrates all of his other efforts on his school, which is well regarded.
The school itself is a two story building with an upper floor housing a bench room and a lower floor with a well equipped power tool shop and wood storage. Kelly teaches only half of the classes at his school opting to bring subject matter in experts for the balance of the classes. When I spoke with Kelly before the formal lecture he said that he is really pushing students to develop hand tool skills because he finds that very few students have them – he feels that power tools only get you so far and hand tools really allow you to execute fine joinery and details.
While there was a lot more that the lecture covered, the two things that struck me the most were Kelly’s discussion of design and building and his information on safety.
Being the “table saw guy” is a responsibility that Kelly takes very seriously and he has been a strong advocate of mandated safety features on power tools including the new upcoming regulations for guards and riving knives on table saws. In fact, Kelly has switched to mostly European equipment in his shop/school for the efficiencies they offer and more importantly for their safety features.
As for Kelly’s furniture design and woodworking, he tends to create pieces with simple lines. Most of his pieces are reminiscent of the Shaker style although, he did show a couple of Federal style reproductions that he has done that were full of detail. His approach is to allow the wood to define the piece. Kelly works in all solid woods (including drawer bottoms and case backs). He feels that a piece with simple lines can be made spectacular by taking time to choose and match the wood and grain. Some of the simply designed pieces that he showed exhibited this very quality. He joked that he has a “sickness” because when buying lumber he obtains the stock from entire trees and stores it in his shop waiting for the right project. I can tell you that the pieces he showed using matched woods from the same tree were both exceptional and inspiring.
Unfortunately, I was not able to take part in Kelly’s workshop demonstration today – he was to build a Shaker side table out of a single board showing the very techniques that he espouses for wood and grain matching. It would have been nice to see his techniques in practice. None the less, it was an informative lecture that I’m glad I got to attend.
This past weekend I finished work on a new table design made from Walnut. I showed its design previously in another post. Now, with the final coats of finish on it I wanted show you the completed project, talk about the details and get your take on its design.
Construction Details
First, a bit about how the table was constructed. Unfortunately, I don’t have any pictures of the construction process, but I will walk you through the relevant details.
The legs were cut from 8/4 stock using a template that I made from 1/4″ hardboard. I traced the pattern onto the stock and used the bandsaw to rough out the legs within about 1/16″ of the line. The curves were smoothed with an oscillating spindle sander, a card scraper and finally hand sanding. I cut the joints into the legs before doing this shaping so that I could use square stock while executing the joinery – I’ll talk more about that a bit later.
All of the other parts of the table were cut from 4/4 stock. The curves on the both sets of upper and also the lower end stretchers were done in a similar manner to the legs, except I used double-stick tape between each two pieces and then cut and shaped each set together. For the upper end stretchers, I planed the stock down to about 5/8″. The notches in these pieces that fit over the legs were done on the table saw, nibbling away until I achieved a close fit.
The upper and lower curved stretchers and the legs were both mortised using the mortising jig I posted about here. These joints were assembled with loose tenons. I assembled the two end leg sections first. The top stretchers are attached into the tops of the legs with Miller Dowels. I had never used these before but, I thought that this was a perfect application for them. Once the two end leg sections were assembled, the cross stretchers were glued up to complete the base of the table. For the lower cross stretcher I again used contrasting Miller Dowels to join it to the end assemblies.
The top was glued up from three Walnut boards that I selected for a good grain match. The top needed to be assembled to the base while allowing for wood movement.. To accomplish this, a shallow stopped grove was routed into the upper end stretchers on their underside. These groves were drilled with an oversize screw hole to allow the top to expand and contract across the grain without splitting. The top was fastened to the base through these holes with four wood screws.
The entire piece was hand scraped and sanded with 220 grit. The finish is three coats of thinned General Finishes Arm-R-Seal scuff sanded between coats with 320 grit. The final coat was rubbed out with a piece of paper grocery bag to remove any remaining dust nibs.
The Design
My aim with this design was to create a piece in an Arts and Crafts style while adding some Asian influence. I was inspired by looking at some works in the Greene & Greene style as well as some James Krenov pieces.
I did not want too much ornamentation on the table because I thought that the wood could speak for itself without too much competing detail. As a result, I opted to use subtle curves repeated in the legs and stretchers. The only slight ornamentation was the use of a contrasting colored dowels to join the lower cross stretcher.
I like the way that Krenov’s cabinet pieces sometimes float above a base. In this vein, I attempted to create some negative space and lightness in this piece by raising the top off of the stretchers. My thought was that this would create some visual interest and along with the leg styling, offer some Asian influence to the piece. The edge treatment on the table top again was simple. Just a hand planed chamfer on all edges so as to not compete with the wood.
All in all, I’m happy with the way that the table turned out. I think that it generally conveys what I wanted when I set out to design it. The wood is beautiful in and of itself and I hope that the subtleties in the design allow that to come through. If there were anything that I might change on another version of this piece, I might try curving or tapering the legs on both outward facing sides rather than just one. That detail might create a bit more of a balanced look when viewing the table from the ends.
I’d enjoy hearing what you think about the design – good and bad. Do you think I hit the mark in obtaining an Asian/Arts and Crafts feel? Please let me know your thoughts – you can contact me at thecraftsmanspath@gmail.com or leave comments here using the comments link at the end of the post.
Tags: Arts and Crafts, Asian, Design, James Krenov, table, walnut
