Modern Queen Anne Table

[Alan Turner]

Here is a side table en route to a Southern California (Palos Verdes Estates) sitting room which is bright and sunny. FedEx Ground has it in its hopefully safe clutches. This was a commission, and the style is what I call a Modern Queen Anne Table. Quilted Maple, mahogany, ebony quirk bead. 21" sq.; 26" h.

The 4 similar shots show the table turned 90 degrees. The wood is quite chatoyant.

Thanks for looking.

[Roy Wall]

MOdern Queen Anne......a good name!!

Alan,

Terrific piece! I love the quilted maple. It looks "light" but firm.

The underside "bevel" of the top is wonderful..................Very Nice!!!

[Wendell Wilkerson]

Nice Job, AGAIN! I hope FedEx treats her well (a table with legs like that is obviously a lady ;) ). I sure wouldn't trust UPS with her.

Did you use the yellow dye and lime finish on the mahogany? I really like the color you're getting with this finish.

Wendell

[Jim Becker]

Hey folks...I had the pleasure to fondle this piece last weekend. Alan had it in his car when we met at the Ft Washington show. As outstanding as his photography is, it doesn't really show how exquisite this piece is in person. The maple top is particularly wonderful in the way it bends light.

Alan, terrific table! I know your customer will be pleased...

[Jeff Sudmeier]

Alan that looks great! The bevel on the underside of the top sure makes it look light!

[Alan Turner]

Wendell.
The color on this mahogany is achieved with only one somewhat weak coat of water based Van Dyck Crystals. I felt the red on the base, which the lime causes chemically, would be too much. I wanted instead to emphasize the figure of the maple, and make the base recede a bit, except for the shape.

[Mark Singer]

Alan, My Prolific friend! Beautiful work! I love the proportions! This is a great design! The workmanship is your usuall superb! I didn't realize you ship stuff! I will keep that in mind for my clients....It would be great to have more of your pieces in sunny CA!

[John Miliunas]

Alan, I feel truly "blessed" that LOML isn't computer savvy! If she was and kept seeing your work, she would most definitely force me to sell the entire contents of my shop!:eek: Another beautiful example of superb craftsmanship! I really, really love the way the legs flow on that piece. They just look so "natural", as if the table could really walk away on them!:) Simply wonderful, Alan. You sir have been blessed with skills, which many of us can only dream about!:) :cool:

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Alan.....beautiful table! You are truly skilled!

[Wes Newman]

Alan, Very nice. I especially like the quilted maple top (drool).

[Dan Forman]

Elegant, flowing lines, really like the inverted chamfer on the table top. Your craftsmanship it meticulous, another splendid piece.

Dan

[John Keeling]

Verrry nice!

I assume the legs are cut from a Large piece?? It actually looks as though you'd have to cut them from 16/4 or is that just an optical illusion? In other words how big was your rough stock for the legs?

Verrrrrrry Nice!

Drool, drool...

[Alan Turner]

John,
Good question, and it is a bit of an illusion. The stock is 12/4 rift sawn mahogany, but the size you really need is 2 13/16. Be sure to run the grain from the outside corner to the inside corner so that the grain follows the curve of the leg a bit. I think this looks better than creating the bullseye look, which is to run it the other way, from side to side.

And, I still have enough quilted maple left to do two more this size, and one smaller.

There is a feature of the quilted maple that I employed. That is, this top is resawn from 8/4 stock. But, instead of bookmatching, I flipped one piece end to end so that the light reflects similarly on each view, instead of opposite, which happens on a true bookmatch. This is the first time I have taken that step, and I like the look better, even though the grain is not a true bookmatch. I think the chatoyance is a better visual with the whole of the top integrated vis a vis light refliection, regardless of the precise match of the grain lines.

Thanks for all the nice words, guys. Hope the client feels the same, assuming it arrives in one piece. As to the light weight appearance of the top, I call it "floating" the top, but I don't know if I invented that word, or borrowed it.

[Jim Becker]

Alan, do you do your own photography?

[Alan Turner]

Jim,
I do, when I have to, but am poor at it. For example, I do take my own reference photos. I had both this table, and the desk, shot professionally since they will be going onto my website. One Sat. afternoon; 4 hours of work. I have a roll of 54" paper. I think that the quality of the photography is important to a good presentation. I should add that the pix, as posted, are not retouched in any way.

A prof. photographer is my only advertising expense, and the price was reasonable. I do not understand light, angles, etc. And, the digitals are way beyond my capacity to understand buttons. These photos were all posted after reducing to 25%. At 33% they were too large for this forum's posting rules.

[Walt Pater]

That's some piece, Alan. Good call on the quirk beading. I can't think of other words of praise because it's leaving me SPEECHLESS.
Sheesh that's nice.

[Jim Becker]

Alan, the lighting on the pieces is outstanding...that's why I was asking. That's the hardest part of photographic our work. With turnings, there are a variety of ways to work with a small, inexpensive photo booth and cheap lighting, but furniture is a bigger challenge...literally. Bravo on your results with the pro...he/she is good!

[Mark Singer]

The photos are excellent! It is very hard to take take quality shots le that. That was a smart idea to have them done by a pro.
Alan, the lighting on the pieces is outstanding...that's why I was asking. That's the hardest part of photographic our work. With turnings, there are a variety of ways to work with a small, inexpensive photo booth and cheap lighting, but furniture is a bigger challenge...literally. Bravo on your results with the pro...he/she is good!

[Jason Roehl]

I love it!! I'd have to say I'm not usually drawn to overly ornate pieces, such as historic Queen Anne, but I like how you've taken some QA visual cues and retained them in a piece with simple lines that highlights the pure beauty of the wood used. Well done!!

[Alan Turner]

Thanks Jason, I set myself a goal of designing a different cabriole leg, from scratch. I think I sepnt sever days working on this design, mocking it up, re-patterning, etc. The first sets went into a pair of tables as a wedding gift, but this is the first commission I have done with this leg. I have had other iinquiries on it however. This table is a bit bigger that the pair of night tables with drawers, and I always felt that the first pair (on my web site) were a bit bandy in appearance. So, this time a used a fat pencit to trace the leg, and then stayed to the outside of the line, which probably added about 1/8" of width, and I think it was a good addition.

I love the lines of the QA period, but am not huge on ornamentation, esp. to excess. So this is a bit of a simple table, and the base is meant to give it rather more of a look and feel rather than a detail demaning a lot of attention. I toyed with the notion of adding ebony stockings to the legs, but the client declined, and I think wisely so. It ight be a bit over the top, but still I might give it a try someday just for fun. These are not difficult legs to make. I think I can do two fours in 8 hours, including joinery, but I have never tested that theory.

[Steve Beadle]

Chatoyant = adj : varying in color when seen in different lights or from different angles.
Cool word! Even cooler table! Thanks for the inspiration!

[Roy Wall]

Thanks Jason, I set myself a goal of designing a different cabriole leg, from scratch. I think I sepnt sever days working on this design, mocking it up, re-patterning, etc. The first sets went into a pair of tables as a wedding gift, but this is the first commission I have done with this leg. I have had other iinquiries on it however. This table is a bit bigger that the pair of night tables with drawers, and I always felt that the first pair (on my web site) were a bit bandy in appearance. So, this time a used a fat pencit to trace the leg, and then stayed to the outside of the line, which probably added about 1/8" of width, and I think it was a good addition.

I love the lines of the QA period, but am not huge on ornamentation, esp. to excess. So this is a bit of a simple table, and the base is meant to give it rather more of a look and feel rather than a detail demaning a lot of attention. I toyed with the notion of adding ebony stockings to the legs, but the client declined, and I think wisely so. It ight be a bit over the top, but still I might give it a try someday just for fun. These are not difficult legs to make. I think I can do two fours in 8 hours, including joinery, but I have never tested that theory.

Alan -
What I like about the legs is how they "dive" into the apron area. It looks as if the angle is somewhat acute to be strong and not break out...when in fact they are (I hope!). Then, the remainng 2/3 of the bottom leg is virtually in line with the corners of the table - so there is no crazy stress on that acute joint...

The under bevel is my favorite!:)

[Jay Knepper]

Beautiful, Alan, simply beautiful.

[Alan Turner]

Chatoyant = adj : varying in color when seen in different lights or from different angles.
Cool word! Even cooler table! Thanks for the inspiration!

Thanks Steve. I used to use bill padder software whrn the shop bills got beyond the shop income, but there were numerous objections, and so instead I adopted somewhat obscure descriptors in order to justify the prices I need for a balanced shop budget. If it doesn't work, I'll have to think of yet another approach.

[Steve Inniss]

Alan,

Beautifully executed innovation on a great design. Chatoyant indeed, that table shines.-Steve

[Jason Tuinstra]

Alan, simply outstanding! I'm not typically a Queen Anne kind of guy, but this table is a flat out looker. Very, very nice! The ebony quirk bead gives it that little extra as well. Did they only commission this one table or did you make a pair for them? I wouldn't want it to be lonely :p

[Alan Turner]

Jason,
Thanks so much. Normally I do an internal quirk bead, and an ebony cockbeading on the drawer. But in this case they did not want a drawer, but I still felt that a bit of detail was warranted, so went with the ebony quirk bead.

I tried like crazy to sell them a pair, but one is all they wanted. As it turns out, I will end up making them the second one, but more on this later.

[Pam Niedermayer]

Well, Alan, add me to the chorus, the work of a master.

How did you do the quirk beading? Glued the ebony on, then quirked? Or quirked then glued?

Thanks,
Pam

[Alan Turner]

Pam,
I think master is an overstatement, but thanks anyway. I let a rebate into the apron, cut the stock on the TS, and scratched it on the bench. Glued it with hide glue as it will pull something like this tight without a million clamps.

[Jason Tuinstra]

I tried like crazy to sell them a pair, but one is all they wanted. As it turns out, I will end up making them the second one, but more on this later.

Alan, I guess this is a good thing, but I bet it would have been nice to build them both at the same time :o Maybe you should make three just in case :p Out of curiosity, how do you ship them to California? This seems like it would be a project in itself to protect the piece from the various shipping hazards.

[Mark Singer]

Alan,

I know this my second or third coment on this table....it is beautiful and te proportions are wonderful!

"Master" is the correct word....Pam was dead on!