Lots of progress on the Greene and Greene desks over the past two weeks. I made 16 legs with inlet details (8 per desk) and fully mortised (photo below shows the legs before mortising), tapered, rounded-over (1/8″ round-over) and rough-sanded them.. I am pleased with how they turned out.
In addition to the legs, I cut and tennoned the four interior braces out of secondary wood (poplar) and cut and tennoned all of the lower rails (14). The lower rails still need to be rounded-over on the router table.
I am going to use soft maple of the rest of the secondary wood parts (drawer sides and backs), but I used poplar for the braces since I had it available and those parts will not be seen after the desks are complete.
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About mattsanf
Matthew Sanfilippo is currently Executive Director of PSII (Pennsylvania Smart Infrastructure Incubator) and the CenSCIR (Center for Sensed Critical Infrastructure), Associate Director of ICES (Institute for Complex Engineered Systems), and Associate Director of PITA (Pennsylvania Infrastructure Technology Alliance) at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU).
Prior to CMU, Matthew was Director of Applied Technology for Michael Baker Corporation, a large engineering and energy services firm. Matt managed a technology consulting division for Baker including Geographic Information System (GIS), software and web development, multimedia, virtual reality (VR), visualization, Global Positioning System (GPS), mapping and surveying services.
Before joining Baker, Matt was an Innovation Director for Redleaf Group, a Venture Capital/Operating Company focused on Information Security, Supply Chain, Network and Mobility Solutions. While at Redleaf, Matt managed technical due diligence for seed-stage investments and coordinated relationships between Redleaf and their partner companies after investment.
Prior to Redleaf, Matt was CIO of GZA GeoEnvironmental Technologies, a Boston-based engineering firm, and operations manager for their Internet start-up division that focused on web-technologies for health and safety and manufacturing metrics.
Matt is current board member and past Chairman of the Board for the Botanic Garden of Western Pennsylvania, a board member of the Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation (PHLF), and a former member of the Information Sciences and Technology Advisory Board for the Pennsylvania State University Beaver. Matt is also a former Vice President of the Pittsburgh Chapter of the Association of Internet Professionals and former Vice President of the Board of Trustees for Baker Combined Charity of Pennsylvania.
You should check out the new Robert Lang book about Greene & Greene furniture as well; in addition to the carefully measured and drafted plans, he discusses how to make the common G&G details, like the ubiquitous square pegs.
I think it’s also worth the effort to find a museum where you can see G&G furniture in person — there are subtleties that seem to get missed, even in the better photographs and books. I’m still not convinced, for example, that Lang has the cloud lift design down, although he does say that it isn’t the same shape in every piece — I may have seen different versions than he did. The rounding and hollowing at the ends of table legs also seems to be difficult to describe or to capture in photographs and drawings.
Thanks!
I already bought the Robert Lang book and it is very good…and you are correct, I intend to use his method to make the pegs.
I’d love to see some G&G in person, but I being on the east coast, I’m not sure if there is any nearby.
I struggled to get the bottom “taper” (about 1″ long) on the legs to look right. I think I may have made it too pronounced. I am happy with how the “hollowing” or inlet details turned out though.
Thanks for the comments!
Matt