Greene and Greene What!? My first build along thread

[Darin German]

I have been a member here for a while, most of the time just reading with great interest all the imformation available on this website. I recently picked up a General International 90-125 M1 14" bandsaw (my first) and I needed to make it mobile. I wanted to make the mobile base for it instead of buying. So I sat down after reviewing as many mobile base threads here as I could and sketched out my base. It took on some design elements that reminded me of Greene and Greene furniture so I thought why not and included as many G&G design elements into as I could. I definitely took a little bit of liberty with it but I really like what I came up with. Took me about a week to flesh it out, but I'm happy I finally learned the basics of Sketch-up.
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So my wife and I shipped off my two year old daughter to the mother in-law's this weekend leaving me lots of shop time, something I don't get very much of because my wife works nights and I have a 50 hr week job. I got all of my stock planed and jointed and began working on the finger joints.
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Then I test fit the skirt boards to the saw to make sure I didn't screw something up.
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I then built the templates for the upper section using leftover laminate flooring from our basement.
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I then cut my half lap joints, cut the mortises for the 1/4" plugs, bandsawed the sides and cross pieces and sanded to where I was fairly happy with how they came out. Here it is dry fitted.
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After cutting the half laps to the correct profile I then began working on rounding over all the exposed edges of the half laps and finger joints.

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On to the next post.

[Darin German]

It took me a little while to get a hang of how the round-overs were to look, this is where Darrell Peart's website was an invaluable resource. After much hand sanding I am happy with the results but I think I may have gone a little too far with the roundovers.
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Thats about as far as I got this weekend. Next will be finishing all the roundovers on all the boards, drilling holes in the top to secure it to the skirt board/base and then glue up of top. I am still deciding how I want to install the 3/4" ply bottom, either captured in grooves or floating on top of brackets screwed into the base. I also don't know if I'm going to stain the ash or leave it natural. Right now I'm leaning toward natural with very dark plugs. I think I will like the contrast. I liked the idea of doing this in the G&G style because I wanted to find out if I would enjoy building in that style. I think there will be more G&G in my future. Comments, questions and critiques welcome.

[Bruce Page]

That is the first Greene & Greene mobile base I have ever seen! Cool and functional!

[Darin German]

Thanks Bruce. When I was looking at all the mobile base threads, the ones that caught my eye had some stylistic parts to them, but mine may be a little overboard. I look at it as practice for my real Greene and Greene project which I don't have planned yet.

[Van Huskey]

I was opening this thinking furniture with a very modern function like a TV cabinet, buy you went WAY past that. I have never seen a "styled" mobile base, very cool! It reminds me of when industrial design took beauty into account, pre guarded bandsaw wheels and the Delta Art Deco bases for machines come to mind. Thus may make me reconsider shop "furniture" in the future.

[Brian Kent]

I really like that. What a great way to practice and to enjoy the fruits of your label each time you work.

[gary Zimmel]

A mobile base thats a small piece of shop furniture...
Nice work Darin.

[Darin German]

Van- I have always thought that the Art Deco machinery was very cool and made today's machinery look lacking. I know that I have taken this one overboard but it makes me grin.
Brian- yeah it was the kick out on the sides that got me thinking Greene and Greene to begin with. I just put them in there in case I wanted to put my foot up while at the machine and that got the ball rolling on the design
Gary- coming from you whom has some of the most beautiful shop cabinets, I take a bit of pride in that.
Thanks for your responses gentlemen. I hope to be able to show the finished product soon.

[glenn bradley]

I don't think you went too far at all on the roundovers. They look just right to me (http://www.sawmillcreek.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=166962&d=1289523648). Shop fixtures are a great way to try new things and that base is a winner.

[Pat Barry]

I like what you are doing here, making something useful and learning something new at the same time. For instance, your comment about possibly rounding over the joints too much. How would you know with out experimenting a bit. This project gives you the ideal opportunity for that. Well done.

[Darin German]

Thank you for the nice words of encouragement Glenn and Pat. Glenn the link you provided, is that your work? Very nice if it is. I stayed late at work tonight and so didn't have time to accomplish much. I was able to refine some of my curved work. Then I set the base/skirt board on the top to set my overlap and determined where I needed to drill holes to connect the top to the bottom. I then cut plenty of plugs to fill those holes. Pics:
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[Darin German]

Over that past couple of nights I have been able to make some progress but it always seems with me that means 2 steps forward and 1 step back. I routed stopped grooves in the sides of the sub base to install 3/4" pieces of wood to hold the 3/4" ply for the saw to sit on. Routing stopped grooves is one of my least favorite things to do. I never seem to be able to get smooth walls no matter how well I seem to be able to hold the piece against the fence on my router table. I glued up the subassemblies and tried my best to keep glue from the edges of the decorative joints but still had a bunch of squeaze out. Because these joints will be structural I wanted to make sure they were not glue starved. I think that in a future G&G project I will use some means of keeping glue off the exposed portions of the joints. I spent a bunch of time tonight cleaning out those joints of dried glue and using mineral spirits to verify it was all gone... or at least cleaned to a point that I can live with. Yes there were several times that I asked myself why am I spending so much time on a shop fixture. I reasoned with myself that if I run into this problem in the future I want to be able to handle it, but really it was because I just couldn't bring myself to let it go. I sanded the top and applied finish (Watco Danish Oil) to the underneath. I also applied it to the top of the sub-base. I relieved the backs of the holes for attaching the top. Tomorrow I will hopefully be able to join the two pieces. Then I will insert the round plugs. I picked up a block of wood to make the square plugs from but am unsure of what type of wood it is.
Any guesses?
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[glenn bradley]

Glenn the link you provided, is that your work? Very nice if it is.

Thanks for the kind words; that is one of mine but, let's not thread-jack :D. You mentioned that you like the G&G elements and took some liberties. I think that is exactly what you should do, unless you are doing a reproduction. I am an admitted G&G fan so I am a bit biased sometimes :rolleyes:. Taking style elements you enjoy and making them your own is part of the fun. Using them on shop fixtures is classic. Love it. Thanks for sharing your build.

[Jim Matthews]

This is positively demented.

All you need now is a lighted Tiffany fixture for your drill press...

[Darin German]

Thank you Glenn. Again I say nice work and thank you for following me on this build. I think before I begin a G&G furniture build I may have to pick your brain a bit about some of the problems I have ran into. In searching the internet I couldn't really find a ton of pictures of G&G furniture, not like you can for arts and crafts. I may see if you'll post more of your G&G work if I can't find it by running a site search.

[Darin German]

Jim, nobody has ever accused me of being sane, especially not my wife. No Tiffany light fixture for the drill press, you can't see it in the pictures but there is a crystal chandelier hanging from the ceiling above. I thought everybody had one?:confused:

[Jim Matthews]

I would say it was over the top, but it's goes under.
It's like Roy Underhill's Mystery Mallet (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3zRMIh2zHs)...a woodworker's inside joke.

I love it.

[Darin German]

Over the weekend I was able to secure the two sub-assemblies, plug the holes for the connecting screws and then began working on the dark plugs for the top and the finger joints. I decided after a bit of practice that I wasn't going to shape the dark plugs before I installed them. Instead i left them square and then paired them to shape with a sharp chisel and some sandpaper. Overall I am pretty happy with how they came out, but I think that for any G&G builds down the road I will spend the time to get them shaped right before install. I think that I will be able to get a more consistent shape that way. I then cut the 3/4" by 1 1/8" wide brackets to fit in the stopped grooves of the base to hold the saw. I have nixed the plywood panel as I feel the brackets will be sufficient to hold the saw and I don't want to raise the saw that extra 3/4". Work ended this weekend after I installed the brackets. Over the next couple days I should be able to final sand and apply finish. After that I'll install the casters. This one should be wrapped up in a few days. Pics:
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[Darin German]

Here it is finished and under the saw. In use it does its job well even going over the expansion joints in my concrete floor fairly well with the 3" casters. I will have to be careful about how I approach those cracks though. All in all I would say that this was a very useful project as it allowed me to use and learn my new bandsaw, allowed me to take a step into Greene and Greene design and build, I learned Sketch-up and I performed several operations during the build that I had not yet attempted. I thought that I may never get a chance to build a G&G style piece before beginning this mobile base, but I now know that this style is something I will be working with again sometime. Thanks for following me during this build.
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[Van Huskey]

Great job! That General may have no idea how lucky it is! Shame that the mice in the shop get the best view of the details!

[Kevin Gregoire]

wow, that is a mighty fine job!
you should make up a set of dimensional plans and send it and the pics into a magazine, i bet they would publish it!
i know i would love to see some more detailed plans.

[David Barlow]

Jim, nobody has ever accused me of being sane, especially not my wife. No Tiffany light fixture for the drill press, you can't see it in the pictures but there is a crystal chandelier (http://luxrange.co.uk/chandeliers) hanging from the ceiling above. I thought everybody had one?:confused:

I think it looks great, good work Darin.

[Jerome Hanby]

I think this was a great idea. You get a shop fixture that you needed and got some practical, useful experience that you can use in furniture making. Plus, you got to try out a style of furniture to see if you like it and you aren't stuck with some big piece of furniture if it turns out you don't like the style.

[Brian Kincaid]

Classy! I like it! Also agree that when you have time or need, overbuilding shop stuff is great practice for furniture.
I dovetail everything because I like them and I enjoy the practice.
-Brian

[John Shuk]

A turner who I respect once told me that he makes his tool handles from the most beautiful woods he finds. He said being surrounded by beautiful tools inspires him to do beautiful work.
Very attractive way to meet your shop needs.

[Darin German]

Thank you all for the kind words. I had fun building this and sharing it with this community. I have saved the Sketch-up model to the 3D warehouse with parts blown out with measurements. Search for Greene and Greene Inspired Mobile Base if you're interested.

[frank shic]

darin, that's a great mobile stand. wonder if someone else built a shaker version? ;)