Reproduction of a 1700 pine and oak table originally built in Connecticut. Currently in Connecticut Historical Society. Table has chamfered posts, stretchers, and breadboard top.

Table Summary

· Post and rail construction

· Pinned mortise and tenon joints

· Hand-cut dovetails on drawer with solid bottom

· Breadboard top

· Clear sugar pine material

· Dovetailed frame in top of posts

In January 2007, I begin teaching a new adult education course titled, “Reproducing Antique Furniture”. This course will be conducted in eight 3-hour sessions in a well-equipped work shop in Pleasant Hill, CA. The initial challenge is selecting an antique that each student can reproduce in the  limited  8-week period, yet provide sufficient complexity for a learning experience in 18th C design and construction techniques. I selected a small table from “Furniture Treasury” by Wallace Nutting.

Wallace Nutting briefly describes this table as follows:

1241. Chamfered Posts. Top Gouge Carved. 1700. From Churchill Family. Newington, Connecticut. At Wadsworth Atheneum. George Dudley Seymour.        

I liked this table for the course for the following reasons:

· It is a substantial, practical, and useful piece, not a diminutive box, toy, or stool

· It is one of the few 18th C tables that does not require turned legs. (I did not want to complicate this course with leg turning requirements)

· It is a small table that can be built within the limited course duration

· It includes classic 18th C construction techniques including pinned mortise & tenon joints, upper frame dovetails to top of posts, drawer runners, post and rail construction, and drawer fabrication including dovetails and solid bottom.

· I added a breadboard design for the top (probably not included in the original)

 

Reproduction of Chamfered Post Table