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
Matt Sanfilippo is the Chief Partnership Officer (CPO) for the College of Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) and Co-Director of its Engineering Research Accelerator. In this role, Matt coordinates and enables strategic and sponsored research opportunities across the college, and stewards the development of proposals for major research opportunities along strategic themes. Additionally, he enables collaboration among the college's research institute/center executive directors, and industrial and government relations personnel in the pursuit of opportunities with industry, federal and state governments. Before becoming CPO for the College, Matt was the Senior Executive Director for Research Initiatives, the Executive Director of CMU's SII (Smart Infrastructure Institute) and ICES (Institute for Complex Engineered Systems), and Associate Director of PITA (Pennsylvania Infrastructure Technology Alliance) and RAMP (Research for Advanced Manufacturing in Pennsylvania).
Before CMU, Matt was Managing Director of Applied Technology for Michael Baker Corporation, an engineering and energy services firm. Matt managed Baker's technology division including Geographic Information System (GIS), software and web development, multimedia, virtual reality, 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 and mobility solutions. While at Redleaf, Matt managed technical due diligence for seed-stage investments and coordinated relationships between Redleaf and their partner companies. Prior to Redleaf, Matt was CIO of GZA GeoEnvironmental Technologies, an infrastructure engineering firm, and operations manager for their Internet start-up that focused on web-technologies for health and safety and manufacturing metrics.
Matt is on the board of Larson Design Group (LDG), past Chairman of the Board for the Pittsburgh Botanic Garden, current board member of the Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation (PHLF), current Vice President of the Sewickley Heights Gun Club (SHGC) and former member of the Information Sciences and Technology Advisory Board for the Pennsylvania State University Beaver. Matt is also 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.
A Learning Adventure in the Workshop 
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