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Plant Stand Joinery

Ted Calver

Ted Calver

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Yorktown, Virginia
Found a pair of these plant stand/occasional tables in my MIL's attic when she passed. Tops had been refinished and the squirrels and mice had been living on them, but they were still pretty sturdy. Hard to tell style or age, but I'm assuming they were mass produced and probably weren't very expensive. Maybe from the 1920-30s? What's interesting is they used a kind of pocket screw to attach the lower shelf and a ramped sliding dovetail to attach the legs to the top, something I had not seen before--and a clever way to hold splayed legs.

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Bill Arnold said:
Very interesting, Ted. Thanks for posting! What's the thickness of the top?
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Top is right at 3/4", Bill.

Jim DeLaney said:
Interesting joinery. Can you tell if the dovetails were hand cut, or machine cut?
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It looks like the dovetails were machine cut. There's a little fuzz along the top of the cut that I don't think anyone doing hand work would have left. The pocket holes were all uniform too.
 
nice pieces to have rescued Tes.
I like the way they thickened up the top yet kept weight down.
looks like some nice oak used.
given the reinforcing and dovetails is the unit sturdy. i ask because the edge of the top overhangs the 4 feet so wondering?
how far you going to go in cleaning them up? what u plan on using them for?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Rob Keeble said:
nice pieces to have rescued Tes.
I like the way they thickened up the top yet kept weight down.
looks like some nice oak used.
given the reinforcing and dovetails is the unit sturdy. i ask because the edge of the top overhangs the 4 feet so wondering?
how far you going to go in cleaning them up? what u plan on using them for? Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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Rob, They are surprisingly sturdy for the amount of overhang, the dovetails lock the legs in tight. Maybe they are tapered, which would help lock them in. We are not planning any refinishing and they are both employed holding "stuff" like all the other flat surfaces in our house:D. I just noticed that the other one is a bit larger and has spiral carved legs. It's holding modems and AV gear, while the smaller one is performing plant stand duty.
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Ted Calver said:
Rob, They are surprisingly sturdy for the amount of overhang, the dovetails lock the legs in tight. Maybe they are tapered, which would help lock them in. We are not planning any refinishing and they are both employed holding "stuff" like all the other flat surfaces in our house:D. I just noticed that the other one is a bit larger and has spiral carved legs. It's holding modems and AV gear, while the smaller one is performing plant stand duty.
View attachment 102006
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I need your secret for getting that xmas cactus to bloom. I've got 3 and only one, which is a different variety is throwing out one, maybe 2 blooms every year. I've got two others that were starters from my great grandmother's plant, which my mom still has, but have no luck in getting blooms from them.
 
Darren Xmas cactus need a short day treatment to set buds. Most of these cactus are in an area that gets to much light. The living room, den etc.
Need to go somewhere with shorter day length. Greenhouses will figure when they want maximum Bloom and back up 3 months and start black cloth treatment. Last time I flowered some it was 12 hours dark. Box or bucket over them also works.
David
 
David Johnson said:
Darren Xmas cactus need a short day treatment to set buds. Most of these cactus are in an area that gets to much light. The living room, den etc.
Need to go somewhere with shorter day length. Greenhouses will figure when they want maximum Bloom and back up 3 months and start black cloth treatment. Last time I flowered some it was 12 hours dark. Box or bucket over them also works.
David
Click to expand...

Thanks David, That actually makes sense to me as the one my mom has would only bloom when she kept it in my room as a kid, which I kept pretty much dark most of the time. ;) I'll have to give it a try and also try not to forget where they are. :)
 
Darren,
What David said. Our secret appears to be neglect. We keep ours in a little used room near a north side window until they bloom and then move them into our main living space so we can enjoy them. They dry out a lot between watering, mainly because out of sight, out of mind. This was actually the second bloom for this plant, the first was in late November. We go into minimum daylight (Persephone Days) on or about November 20th, when our short days start and these plants think the world is coming to an end and attempt to reproduce. The sheer curtains on the north side windows further reduce the light, so maybe that's where the November bloom comes from.
 
We have good luck with several colors here in south GA. We started with one pink one in FL that started blooming at Thanksgiving and lasted through Christmas. I added other colors from on online supplier. We now have six different colors that I hang on the front porch until it gets cold enough to protect them on racks in our garage. Since we can typically leave them out until December, the day length works out great to synchronize the blooming.

In this photo, the first five are "Holiday (Christmas)" cacti. The one on the right blooms a brilliant red around Easter, getting the tag of - yep - Easter cactus.

HolidayCacti_20151209a.jpg


Here's the red in full bloom in April.

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I remove the plants from the baskets about every three years to clean up the roots and add potting soil. They all get a spoonful of Osmocote in early Spring.
 
Yup Bill you have the back. Those are beautiful cacti. They are also old. The cactus do thrive on neglect. Over watering is usually the culpert.
Ted those are the perfect spot for those pots. They set the plant off very well with the turned, slanted legs. An old fashioned look.
David
 
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