Popular Woodworking 2004-11 № 144, страница 78

Shaker

Tripod ^Table

Although delicate, this graceful table should provide years of service in your home.

Several years ago while teaching a chairmaking class at the Marc Adams School of Woodworking, I thanked Mario Rodriguez (who was teaching a hand-tool class at the school that same week) for writing a magazine article I had seen some years before in which simple tenons had been substituted for sliding dovetails to j oin the legs of a period tripod table to its pedestal. The article, I explained, had been a revelation, allowing me to simplify the construction of these tables without losing any real strength. Mario very kindly pointed out that he had not written the article, nor did he know who had.

Ouch.

Despite my confusion over its authorship, the article had been a revelation, one that changed the way I built these tables and one that caused me to take a long-overdue look at the issue of joint-making excess.

Complex mechanical joints (the very best examples can be found in period Chinese furniture) offer a high degree of strength even without the use of adhesives. This strength is achieved through the use of interlocking

parts which - particularly when cut by hand - require skill, patience and time to create. They're often joints that are visually elegant and provide eloquent testimony to the furniture maker's skills.

What I had never really considered until reading the article I had mistakenly attributed to Rodriguez is that often these constructions represent joint-making excess. This is because the mechanical strength of a joint is limited by the resistance to breakage of the wood species from which the joint is cut. This very obvious truth is sometimes overlooked by those of us who fall in love with the joint-making process. In our zeal to create elegant joinery, we - perhaps willfully - forget that a joint cut in a fragile species will fail when the wood fails regardless of the mechanical complexity of the joint.

I work primarily in figured maple and cherry because these are the woods my customers prefer. They're not, however, among the strongest American hardwoods. This is a fact I put to the test many years ago using a collection of chairs I had made but had not

by Kerry Pierce

Adapted from "Authentic Shaker Furniture" copyright 2004 by Kerry Pierce. Used with permission of Popular Woodworking Books, an imprint of F+W Publications Inc. Visit your local bookseller, call 800-754-2912 or visit the Bookstore atpopwood.com to obtain your copy.

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