Hello Everyone, and Happy New Year!
This is Ilana, with a special treat for you: a guest post from Gary Radice, long-time reader of this blog, and an excellent woodworker!
Gary recently sent me a photo and description published in Fine Woodworking magazine of a table he made, in which he generously mentioned Chris as his inspiration for making the table. This seemed like a wonderful jumping off point for a guest post that would be of interest to many of you. He was kind enough to write a bit more about the table and share some more photos in the post below.
Big thanks and congratulations to Gary! And thanks to all of you for visiting The Carpentry Way – Chris would love knowing that so many people still find it meaningful and useful today. It means a lot to me too.
Guest Post by Gary Radice
I’m a long time reader of The Carpentry Way, and I return to it often to be amazed and inspired again by Chris’s approach to woodworking. Over the past five years, I’ve slowly begun to incorporate some of his methods and joinery into my own furniture.
A couple of years ago, I got the opportunity to jump in with both feet when my wife asked me to build a small table for our family room. While thinking about designs, I remembered the fantastic joinery Chris used to build his Ming-inspired table and thought this would be a great chance to try something similar. If I survived the joinery challenge, I would have a unique piece that also could go with the Asian-influenced Greene and Greene pieces I’ve made.
My table is a version of a tiaozhuo, or corner legged side table. I made it with madrone, also called arbutus, which is a local hardwood where I live in Oregon, down the coast to California, and up the coast to British Columbia. It isn’t often used for furniture because large stable boards are hard to come by. But I chose it because it is unusual, local, and ages beautifully. I found that it also works well with hand tools and keeps carved details and joinery crisp. (Note from Ilana: I love that Gary chose to use Madrone/Arbutus, which was one of Chris’s favorite trees in British Columbia, and the wood is a wonderful color for a Ming-inspired table, similar to huanghuali.)
The base of the table is triple mitered at the legs/aprons using nearly the same joinery as Chris’s table. I made the top frame as Chris did, with Japanese lock mitered corner joints capturing split floating panels. The panels are held flat with dovetailed battens below, as in Chris’s table. To join the frame and panel top to the legs I borrowed Chris’s clever and unique use of a yatoi hozo captured by the inner corner of the leg. I chose not to use giant arm braces to stiffen the corner as Chris did and instead used humpback stretchers with spear point tenons, which, as Chris often pointed out, can carry a bead or chamfer around a corner. I did use a dab of hide glue for those. I hope Chris, wherever he is, will forgive me! I finished the table with Waterlox and wax. The project took me about five months working half days most days. It definitely was a challenge.
After living with the table for a year and getting positive comments from other woodworkers, and because Chris’s combination of Chinese and Japanese joinery is so unusual, I proposed an article about it to Fine Woodworking magazine. They declined, saying that they had another article about building a Ming table in the works (just my luck) but said they could include a photo in their gallery. It appears in the January/February 2024 issue.
Ilana asked me for a few more pictures. Here are some that show the joinery. The shachi sen are made of osage orange. I left them all proud so the joints can be tightened or disassembled more easily if necessary.
Gary lives in Oregon, USA and can be reached via email.
