Mission/Arts and Crafts Buffet and Hutch Build - Finished!

Gary Zimmel

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356
Location
Stony Plain, Alberta
With my trestle table finishing schedule still up in the air I going to do a small buffet and hutch for our kitchen. This one is going to take a while as the summer acerage chores are really going to get in the way of shop time.:( I have sort of an idea what this is going to look like but it will be a build as I go..... First in order is to get a few legs made up. The Stickley brothers made their legs a couple of different ways to get the look of 1/4 sawn on all four sides. For this one we will do what Gus did a lot of the times and use thin veneers to get the look we are after. Our 8 legs will be 1 3/4' X 1 3/4". Buffet will have 33" and the hutch around 40" Final thickness is done and all the legs are 1/8" to wide right now. They will be trimmed to 1 5/8" just before I glue on the veneers.


legs 1.jpg

To cut the 16 veneers I will need I use my miter gauge to replicate the thickness. I just set the miter gauge fence 1/16" from my blade and then when the stock is set correctly take the miter gauge off the table.

legs 2.jpg

With a sharp blade the 1/16" veneers are ready for mating to the legs and take little time to make. I make a few extra of each length, just in case...

legs 3.jpg

Lets hope this thing doesn't take all summer to make...

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Watching closely! (and learning)

I used the thin veneer process on a recent A&C table and it worked like a charm. However, not being as brave as you, I went with 1/8" thick veneers. Once the edges of the legs received a 1/8" round over the veneer line was invisible.
 
Leg Veneers.

So slowly we are getting the 1/16" veneers on the legs.
Have I told you I like to use a lot of clamps when putting these on...
Most times I will do one at a time because I find they slide around a bit and it sure is easier to make sure they are in place.
The veneers are 1/4" wider than the leg to compensate for the slipping.
I use more glue and clamp pressure doing these. I really want these to have zero gaps.

leg veneers 1.jpg

After the veneer has sat over night I will either use hand planes or my router table to clean up the waste.
If I use the router table as I did this time one really has to take small bites.
Remember the thin veneers are quarter sawn and only 1/16" thick.
This is a bad time to have some tear out....:eek:

leg veneers 2.jpg

I will lastly clean up the edges with a block plane.

leg veneers 3.jpg

So how did we do?
Remember I cut a few extra ones at the start.
By doing this I can match the color up a little better and make the lines pretty close to invisible.
Or so the game plan goes....

leg veneers 4.jpg leg veneers 5.jpg

A few more nights and will have all eight legs/corners done.
But shop time for the next few days is going to be real sparse.:(

Hope everyone is getting a little shop time.

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I've never worked with veneer. The legs on the Craftsman furniture shows quarter sawn on the front and back only.

We have a couple of new Stickley. The didn't use quarter sawn on the legs at all.
 
In the original pieces Leopold, Gus's brother, made the legs and posts with a quadrilinear post.
While Gus opted to add quarter sawn veneer to the non quarter-sawn faces.
I have seen some of the furniture that comes out of the newer stickley plant and they all seem to have the quad posts?
Like on the bed posts, tables and the Morris or Eastwood chairs.
All that aside Dennis, I think the posts sure look nicer with four sides that are quartered.:)
Takes a little extra work but it keeps it to the original way they were built.
 
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Gary Zimmel said:
In the original pieces Leopold, Gus's brother, made the legs and posts with a quadrilinear post.
While Gus opted to add quarter sawn veneer to the non quarter-sawn faces.
I have seen some of the furniture that comes out of the newer stickley plant and they all seem to have the quad posts?

All that aside Dennis, I think the posts sure look nicer with four sides that are quartered.:)
Takes a little extra work but it keeps it to the original way they were built.

The Stickley Settle and Rocker that we bought new in 2008 are made with 1 1/4 square plain sawn oak, each leg is a solid piece. The rest of the pieces are of quarter sawn, just not the legs.

I agree that the Q-sawn on all sides looks great; but making quad posts with hand saws is beyond my level of skill and interest level. I have a desire to do some hammered veneering, but just haven't got there yet.
 
OOPS....

The last week were in Nova Scotia at our sons convocation. While there we were able to go down to Lunenburg to get a peek at the Bluenose Two being rebuilt. Quite the sight seeing a 135 foot schooner out of the water.
They have a long way to go but building one of these little boats the traditional way takes time...

Bluenose.jpg

One other hi point of our trip was to sneak over to New Brunswick and visit my buddy Cosman.
First time I had been in his shop and got a nice tour. Real interesting how he makes his saws and does his videos for his website.

So yesterday after getting back, I finished glueing the veneers on the legs for the buffet.
All good. Or so I thought....
Remember I had said I left the legs a tad wide and was going to cut them to size later.
Well I forgot to.
So I ended up with nice rectangles instead of squares.:eek:

leg redo 1.jpg

They are 1 3/4"X 2". Not really to the game plan.
I thought for a couple of seconds if I should use them as they are. Not really anything to think about. A quick trip to the table saw and we are back to square one with these four.
Upside of this whole thing is I made a few extra veneers. So my next session will be glueing up these legs again....

Leg redo 2.jpg

Maybe this week we will have a little progress forward.

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So I ended up with nice rectangles instead of squares. A quick trip to the table saw and we are back to square one with these four.

Good decision IMHO. I've made that same leg boo-boo and I am always happier in the long run when I just take a do-over. I too favor the QSWO on all faces for the looks.
 
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another vote for four sided, when you recut them gary, you could be down to just one side of veneering correct? or where they to big both directions? and if not then you could have saved the veneer slice with a shallow cut then another cut to size.
 
Sides

With some good shop time this evening I got a lot of work done on the sides.
And finished glueing on the veneers for the second time.....:thumb:

The sides are going to be 16" x 33".
First cut all my rails and stiles.
Rails 3" and stiles 3 1/2" as they will be 1/2" into the legs.
The bottom rail will be cut to length after the top rail has it's tenon on it.

sides 1.jpg

With a scrap piece we set the dado blade 1/2" deep and 1/4' wide.
The pieces go through twice to make sure everything is centered.

sides 2.jpg

Another piece of scrap will give me the right height to make the tenons.

sides 3.jpg

With the top together I now can get the length of the bottom rails.
They are full width as they will have an arc in them.
Doing it this way I find I get the piece the exact length needed.

sides 4.jpg

So this will give us an idea of how these sides for the buffet will look.

sides 5.jpg

Next will be to make a couple of flat panels.


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Sides.

With a couple of short shop sessions we have the sides pretty close to going together.
We first had to put a long groove in each of the legs to accept the stiles.
A little tape lets me know where the dado blade will start and finish.
And one mark on the leg to let me know where to stop.

sides 1.jpg

sides 2.jpg

A quick trip to the morticer gets the groove all the way to the end.

sides 3.jpg

I have pre stained the two panels and have cut my arc in the bottom rail.
These parts have gone through the table saw a bunch of times to get a simple side...

sides 5.jpg

Before these are glued I will knock the corners off the bottom of the legs and put a few more mortices in the legs for the main carcass.
I will also add a couple of mortices for some faux through tenons.

Hope everyone is getting a little shop time.

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Going to hi-jack here just a bit. When you do the 4 sided cover up on the legs, how do you break the sharp edge on the post? You going to just do a quick sandpaper knock down?
 
Hi-jack again.

I was interested in what I could do here in the shop, to meet the 1/16 that Gary got. I sliced off a piece of 8/4 red oak and send it through the sander. Using the Jet Drum, I can get down to 1/16. Don't know why I wondered this, I just did. If we don't experiment and push ourselves, we gain no ground.
 
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