What can you tell me about this stand or a similar one ?

[Winton Applegate]

The Hotel is The Plaza Hotel in New York City.
The room scene is from the movie Home Alone 2.
In theory it is in one of the finest rooms at The Plaza.

The glimpse of the table has stuck with me over the years and I have a good reason to make one for a thank you gift.

I recalled it as a very small rectangular top but now that I have focused on this project I see that it is an oval top.

The one in the movie looks to me to have narrower and perhaps longer legs than the one I found in my American Furniture book.

The bent wood may be more than I want to tackle; I haven’t considered that yet because moments ago I discovered it was oval not square. Maybe it was cut from the solid like a bow front Bombay drawer. I don't know.

Maybe I would be better off building a version of the square top table in the last photo (from the same book) . . . but more on the order of the first one : more basic lower bottom shelf, smaller foot print, no casters etc.

What can you tell me?
Any plans or diagrams of either of them any where you know of ?
Has any one seen the actual stand ? In that room or other wise ?

Thank you !

[Don Kingston]

How about making the one in your head,
Then you could put the thought to bed.

[Mel Fulks]

I agree with Don. There are lots of designs for stands. I would not do the one with the oval top. It is too hybrid for me.
Seems to be a Deco stylized Hepplewhite thing. My suggestion is look at dumb waitor designs, including the design
Jefferson used. Great, but way under used form.

[bill howes]

307535I don't know anything about the stand you posted but this is a photo of a stand that was/is in Celtic lodge, a fine old hotel in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. The top of this one is round with an inlaid china plate. When I saw it I said to myself that this would make a great project. I did take measurements at the time but have misplaced them. Its still on my list of to-dos.
Bill Howes

[george wilson]

Perhaps it is a little teeny dining table for a very skinny old lady who is a very light eater?

[Pat Barry]

Plans? Plans? We don't need no stinking plans...

[Jamie Buxton]

I think I'm seeing that the legs in the movie one not only taper from top to bottom, but that they also are curved just a bit.

The movie one looks graceful to me. The other two look clunkier.

[Winton Applegate]

How about making the one in your head,
Then you could put the thought to bed.
Nice one Don !
(I’m a tryin’)

Mel,

dumb waitor designs, including the design
Jefferson used. Great, but way under used form.
Shapes . . . I need shapes . . . or links . . . or . . .
a look at the underside of that oval thing.

Bill,

stand that was/is in Celtic lodge, a fine old hotel in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia.
Very nice.
It scares me because it has real legs,
I could spend the next year learning how to make the legs alone.
Very nice fall/shape. I think the maker GOT IT. Question is could I EVER get it.
Very nice Bill but I am going to leave that one in your hands and look forward to your thread on how you did it.
Plus
it is larger than I prefer. If she hates my table I want her to be able to stick it out of the way easy enough. Not to disparage her taste but she is working on a distressed pine theme and I just can’t go there.

George,

Perhaps it is a little teeny dining table for a very skinny old lady who is a very light eater?
Ha, ha,
No doubt.
I kind of prefer my version of who owns it and what it holds though :
A mix of Mae West and Salma Hayek (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salma_Hayek) and it is a table where she places the rose which she receives from me often after a long and leisurely dinner and conversation as if time and the rest of the world did not exist.

Well . . . Salma . . . yah . . . Salma would be good . . . no reason to mess with perfect original design . . . right ?

Pat,

Plans? Plans? We don't need no stinking plans...
What’s this we stuff white man ?

I would find it expadutiary (like that? I made it up) and resource conserving to do it right within the first three tries rather than reinventing the wheel.
Thanks for your fervent though slightly misplaced confidence.

Jamie,

I think I'm seeing that the legs in the movie one not only taper from top to bottom, but that they also are curved just a bit.

The movie one looks graceful to me. The other two look clunkier.
Yep that was what I was thinking.
Thanks for pointing out the possible curve in the legs I missed that. Maybe tapered on the inside but straight on the outside.

Annnnnyway . . .
I need to know how the legs attach to the top/apron and how the apron is configured.
I was imagining either bent wood (probably not), or a built up “brick” core with veneer over (probably not; too involved for such a small top) or just an oval cut out of a block the hard way but then there are possible weak grain issues.

Hey throw me a bone here . . .
I’m a straight line/flat panel kind of guy.

[Mel Fulks]

Winton, dumb waiters are easily googled,but they also refer to a form of elevator, so, watch out! One use for them was by affluent people
wanting a little privacy from their servants. There is a well known 18th century print titled THE EXQUISITE DINNER that
shows them in use. The round stand you like is nice ,but you are a smart guy with discriminating tastes ,I believe that in
the long run you will be happier with a more traditional, or your own original design. I predict that in the constantly changing science of kitchen design there will be 15 minutes of fame for dumb waiters matching kitchen cabinets with their
own little "parking places" . With two of them ,one could be assigned to condiments and the other to the food. Roll them to
the table....and give the servants the night off.

[Winton Applegate]

Mel,
? (http://www.monticello.org/site/house-and-gardens/dumbwaiters)
I will say it again :
?
As in "does that look remotely similar" ?

[Mel Fulks]

Some of them do look similar, they are no more standardized than tables. And if anyone here made any ,I dare go out on
a limb and say friends would " like those tables".

[Stew Denton]

Hi Winston,

I wish the picture was a bit clearer, although it could just be my computer.

I can't tell whether there are 4 individual curved pieces making up the apron, with something like sliding dovetails with the curved apron pieces sliding into the top of the legs holding the apron pieces, or whether the apron is an oval made up from thin bands of wood laminated together around an oval mold with the legs tucking in behind the apron with each leg having the equivalent of a rabbit slanting up at an angle parallel to the apron and curved to fit the inside of the apron curve.

If it is something like a longish rabbit on the inside of the curved apron, then the apron must be setting on the shoulder of the rabbit.

Beats me, wish we could get a good look at it, but of course if we could then you wouldn't have made this post.

Stew

[Winton Applegate]

I love it when a plan comes together
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPQlXNH36mI)I think we should all meet at The Plaza for a few days, get a massage or three, a few good meals, you know, to get our strength up for the expedition and then . . .
go knock on the door and all march in and begin to turn the stand every which way, taking measurements, scraping samples of the finish, lots of photographs, ultra violet light scans . . . the whole enchilada . . . then it is back to one of our rooms (or maybe we should book a conference room; complete with lab equipment) for an intensive compilation and processing of raw data before it is time for more mandatory messages in preparation for the long and arduous trek to the dinning facilities.

OK
Now we have a plan !
All we need is a sponsor.

PS: can you imagine the occupant of the room trying to make something of all these guys marching in, ignoring them to all focus on this little stand like a pack of wolves on a single rabbit . . .
then we all bustle out quick as we came busily writing on pads and saving files on our cameras and other instruments with out another glance at the poor soul who booked the room ?

Priceless.

[Winton Applegate]

Stew,
Hey thanks !
Now you are getting me on the right track.
I found this today. (http://www.stenellaantiques.com/previously-sold-furniture/products.php?brand=Kindel&productid=77) Seems to look like the four pieces dovetailed into the top of the legs but not sure of that.

[Pat Barry]

Looks similar in some ways to the tavern table that Sean made and documented last year. As I recall, he had the curved aprons with a similar joinery problem as you are thinking about here.

Edit - sorry - not curved rails but here is a link to his table (http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?215925-Tavern-Table-Finished&highlight=). It still may give you some ideas.

[Winton Applegate]

Pat,
Yah thanks !
I may go with flat sides just like that but "daintier". Sure would get me past the dreaded curved wood barrier. There is a limit to how much I can put into this little project.
I never said I was a decedent of the Townsends or Hepplewhites after all I just said I had sharp plane blades.

[Winton Applegate]

bump itty bump bump