Monday, February 21, 2011

Greene & Greene Leg Detail

Work is progressing on the bench for the entry way but I'm also doing a couple of other, small projects.  One of them is a pizza peel.  We got a pizza stone and it came with a metal peel to take the pizza off but we need a wooden one to slid it into the oven.  Di's planning a get together on Friday so this one has a deadline!  The other is a corner sample of a frame I'm scheming in my head for a series of Diane's Square Foot of Art.
The Greene & Greene detail, here it is:

 You can see how it'll create an interesting shadow line at the bottom of the legs.  I chose to put a very slight (3 degree) taper on the inside front and rear legs but left the sides un-tapered to give some weight to that view.  There is a book by Darrell Peart that shows how to make a jig to cut this detail.













Basically it's a sled of 1/2" MDF that has an opening for a router cutter with a top mounted bearing to guide the cut.  There is a piece of masonite (1/8") at the rear that raises that part and allows the router to cut this inclined ramp.  Three legs down, one to go.







The tapered jig was a little more complex because the front of the legs tapers the opposite way that the backs of the legs do.  What this called for was being able to put the fence on either side of the jig.  Once I routed one side, I unscrewed the fence and positioned it on the opposite side.


The critical dimension is how far the opening is from the fence which clamps against the straight side.  Little bit of math required here, the leg is 1 5/8" wide and the ramp detail is 1" wide.  This leaves 5/16" on either side of it so that's where the fence needs to be attached.  Believe me, if it's off even a sixteenth of an inch it's quite noticeable!


The Honduran Mahogany I'm using for this is a dream to plane.  After cutting the tapers on the inside of each leg I planed them smooth -- so nice!  Next up is the mortises for the stretchers and making a template for the cross brace.  The plan is to use the Arts & Craft cloud lift as an inspiration.

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