I can't remember the first time I saw Arts and Crafts style furniture, but it was love at first sight. I'm sure I must have been 9 or 10 years old, I didn't even know it had a name, I just loved the furniture that my Grandparents had ... and as it turns out, it was Arts and Crafts furniture. I wish I had it now.
There is a huge following of people like me who love the look of this bold, square furniture. In this video I am making a pair of bedside tables from the plans from a book by Robert W. Lang called "More Shop Drawings for Craftsman Furniture" - 30 Stickley Designs for Every Room in the Home. ISBN 13 - 978-1-892836-14-4 and should be quite widely available in book stores and often in better woodworking stores as well. I do not know where the drawings came from or how they got into this book. I have not been able to find a picture of these exact bedside tables so perhaps they are in a private collection somewhere, but I would love to see what the Stickley version of these look like.
Watch this and other similar videos on YouTube - https://youtu.be/FBI6U55_sy8
Although not in the traditon of A&C, the tables I made will feature some splated alder that I collected myself from the forsest ... you can watch that VIDEO HERE
Watch this and other similar videos on YouTube - https://youtu.be/GB9Z3L0Ie1M
Like most Stickley furniture, in an ideal world, these should be made from Red Oak but in my case I used Red Alder as that is what I had on hand and it's a wood I love to work with ...
The basics of all furniture making apply to these tables during construction, but in my case I changed thing a little by using my Dowelmax doweling jig which allows me to make very strong, highly accurate furniture much, much quicker than using tradional mortise and tenon joinery. If you enjoy working with wood, and using hand tools and or machinery, and you like making traditional moritse and tenon joints ... you should do that. Woodworking for many of us is all about making things the way we want to. There are many different ways of working with wood and none are right of wrong, only what works best for us and what we enjoy. The joy of creating and building and working with woood.
I have made these tables a quite a number of years ago and I enjoyed making them this time just a much because I know how much they will be used and that where they are going, they will be much appreciated ...
Copyright Colin Knecht
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