A small Greene and Greene style side table

[Gary Radice]

I just finished this piece. Not a reproduction but it uses my take on G&G features. Honduran mahogany, African mahogany, ebony, and Pau abalone shell for the flower inlay.

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[Jim Becker]

Very, very nice work Gary!

[glenn bradley]

Very nice Gary. Interesting use of the ebony on the drawer box bottom edges. That and the waterfall leg treatment are both nice Gamble House-like touches. The flower inlays make it extra special. The mahogany color is great. What was your finishing protocol?

[Bill McNiel]

Nicely done Sir.

[Gary Radice]

The finish protocol was to sand to 320 grit, then dye stain with Darryl Peart’s formula of General Finishes orange and medium brown 7:4, then 5 or 6 coats of Waterlox satin, skim sanded with 600 grit between coats.

I actually think I didn’t get the drawer details quite right so I’m making another one now. I’ll post an update when it is done.

[Yonak Hawkins]

..Very attractive, Gary. I love all the G&G details. It's definitely a focal piece.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Gorgeous! I like the Greene and Greene style influence! Well executed!

[Rob Luter]

I’m a real G&G fan and I think you knocked it out of the park.

[Gary Radice]

Thanks, folks. Here are a few more construction details.

I had the good fortune to take the Gamble House joinery tour led by Jim Ipekjian in May and came back with my head swimming with G&G details. One I wanted to try was this housed mortise and tenon shelf and leg construction from a table in the master bedroom. I got close, but not quite as refined as the Hall's shop did it.

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For the aprons, rather than single boards, I used a frame and panel construction. That wasn't a common G&G design as far as I know, but the posts I added at the sides of the panels came from a Hall brothers library table that Darryl Peart wrote about a few years back in Popular Woodworking. The abalone inlay was a compromise of sorts. I had wanted to do a rambling rose design with silver stems and padauk flowers as seen in the Gamble House guest room, but I couldn't get the silver inlay to look good to my eye. So I went with a simple abalone flower without the vine. Kind of deconstructed G&G. I made a coffee table last year that sits in the same room as this table, and it has an abalone flower, too, so that feature helps unite the pieces.

A couple of other features: this has a dust frame and panel with drawer runners of American hornbeam let into the side stiles of the dust panel frame. The runners are replaceable if they ever wear out.

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Mortises for the 3/16" square pegs on the table frame were made with Lee Valley's square punches. For the drawer, the pegs are 1/8" square and that is smaller than Lee Valley's smallest punch, so those mortises were cut with a chisel.

[Von Bickley]

Great looking table.....

[Bill Carey]

Wow - very nice work Gary. Impressive job on the housed mortise and tenon.

[Don Bullock]

Excellent example of G&G. Thanks for sharing.

[Pat Barry]

Beautiful! You noted that you used both Honduran and African mahogany. Which parts are which?

[Gary Radice]

The top, shelf, apron panels, and drawer bottom are Honduran, from a single board. The rest is African (khaya) from several boards from the same stock. They were pretty different colors to start. The dying leveled that out mostly.

I'm pretty sure, anyway. Identifying the differences is not always so easy. The labels in the hardwood store just said "mahogany" for one, and the rest I got off Craigslist. But I did me best on research. I'd be delighted to be corrected/educated if I'm wrong.

[Pat Barry]

The top, shelf, apron panels, and drawer bottom are Honduran, from a single board. The rest is African (khaya) from several boards from the same stock. They were pretty different colors to start. The dying leveled that out mostly.

I'm pretty sure, anyway. Identifying the differences is not always so easy. The labels in the hardwood store just said "mahogany" for one, and the rest I got off Craigslist. But I did me best on research. I'd be delighted to be corrected/educated if I'm wrong.
Thanks. I like how the piece looks. Nice color and grain appearance.

[Gary Radice]

I finished the drawer version 2.0. I redesigned the ebony bands on the top and bottom so that the side bands extend all the way to the front, front band set between them and set back a bit. Then I rounded over the ends of the sides bands to match the rounded profile of the fingers. That is a more a unified look to my eye, compared to having the front band all the way side to side. Doing that meant re-orienting the half dovetail ebony joint, for which I got a better fit this time and the ebony didn't crack.

I re-proportioned the finger joints a bit, and also rounded the sides as well as the ends of the finger joints to give a deeper shadow line at the fingers.

I added some square pegs to the back joints, too, just because I could. G&G never did anything fancy to the back of their drawers, so this was mostly for my own amusement.

I made the bottom out of a solid piece of wood instead of the glued up pieces. The bottom is now from the same board as the top and shelf so the figure matches in all the horizontal surfaces.

I installed 16 brass pins instead of 12, four on a side instead of three, which looks better balanced to my eye.

I saved the pull from the old drawer.

NOW I can say it is done!

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[Jim Becker]

Wow....nice!

[glenn bradley]

A subtle detail but, a giant leap in appearance. It is interesting that we sometimes react better to a piece without actually knowing why. Subtle details like this make a big difference to me visually. Well worth the effort and very well done.

[Bill Adamsen]

Nice work. Love the choice of contrasting joinery materials.

[joel cervera]

Wow. Thats a lot of woodworking packed into a relatively small space! Nicely done.

[Gordon Eyre]

Impressive and you have made good use of the G&G style to come up with a sturdy and beautiful piece of furniture.

[Michelle Rich]

I have always loved G&G and this little table makes me want to make one of my own. Great details, and a lot of effort went into this beauty. congrats on a fine build.

[Stan Calow]

very nice Gary. Are those brass pins cut from a rod, or brass screws with top ground down?

[Gary Radice]

Stan, those are #6 screws. I drilled the holes first, then I screwed the screws in up to the shaft, then used a jeweler's saw to cut off the heads, then carefully filed the stubs flat, then sanded smooth. According to Jim Ipekjian, that's approximately the way the Hall brothers made this detail. Apparently on some of the original G&G pieces, you can still see a bit of the screw slot that wasn't filed completely flat. It sounds fussy but actually it goes pretty fast. I timed it and once I got going it took about 3 minutes to do each one.

Michelle, you should jump in and try your hand at a G&G piece. This is my second and it is the most fun woodworking I've had. So many little details to discover when you make one that you don't notice when you just look at them.

Joel, you are correct that there is a lot of woodworking in this. I said the same thing to myself as it was going along. There were a lot of small pieces to shape, especially with the posts and rails. Kind of like a jewelry box on legs.

One small detail that I didn't mention is that the legs have a very slight entasis. They flare about 1/32nd from the top the the bottom shelf on the outside edges, and then 1/32nd again to the bottom of the outside edges of the feet. It is very subtle but noticeable and gives a little extra feeling of groundedness. Makes it look a little less tippy.

And for reference, the top is about 15" square. It is 21.5 inches tall.

[Robert Cherry]

Very nicely done Gary, looks great!

[Mason Hanson]

Wow! You did a wonderful job, Gary. I love the detail in the table.