Greene & Greene cloud lift & design critque

Books

Ed Mulligan, Cape Cod

>Moses -

Three books with good stuff for you:

Images of the Gamble House by Thomas

Greene & Greene Furniture and Related Designs by Makinson

Greene & Greene Design Elemenets fot the Workshop by Peart

Ed

In looking at it...

Scott Burr in Ben Lomond, CA

>You have 4 lifts over a very shoty course. I'd go with two at the very most over the run you have and width (or height) of the wood you have sketched. G&G is very simple and a mostly machine made style. One must remember this.

Scott, trying to find a pic to explane this myself...

Look at some books before you think you can attack something as what looks to be as simple as a G&G piece. There's alot more to it than meets the eye IMHO.

Links

Ed Mulligan, Cape Cod

>http://www.nelson-atkins.org/collections/decorative/detail/bookcase.htm

http://cgi.ebay.com/Sothebys-Greene-Greene-Arts-Crafts-Catalog-04_W0QQitemZ7021219215QQcategoryZ118257QQcmdZViewItem

http://www.latimes.com/features/home/la-hm-greene10mar10_icqxw3kf,0,5248977.photo?coll=la-home-home

http://www.latimes.com/features/home/la-hm-greene10mar10,0,5246387.story?coll=la-home-home

More Links (

Wiley Horne

>On-line forum (Darrel Peart, moderator)

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Greene-style-furniture

Photo-archives:

http://www.usc.edu/dept/architecture/greeneandgreene/

_______

The photo archives in particular can help with how the cloud lifts should look. There is a zoom function, so you can get in on the photo pretty well. You can search by 'project' (e.g., Gamble House), or by type of project ('table'). Simple searches work best.

Wiley

Re: Greene & Greene cloud lift & design critque

Bob Lang

>Hi Moses,

All the other sources mentioned are very good. You really need to stare at a lot of original examples for a while to get the feel for it. There really isn't a "typical" G&G cloudlift-each house had variations on the theme.

To my eye, you have it a bit too traditional, and a bit too busy. I would be frugal about throwing them in. IIRC you work in AutoCAD, so I hope this suggestion makes sense:

Try offsetting the two horizontal lines about 1/2", 5/8" at most. Come in from one of the sides 3" or 4". This will be the center of the curves. From that point, draw a line at 45 degrees up to the other line. Trim away the lines you don't need, and put a fillet at the intersections. The radius of the fillet should be bigger than you think it should be, mess around with it until the 45 degree line is only about 1/16" between the curves.

Hope this helps,

Bob Lang

Are you sure about this?

John in NM

>"G&G is very simple and a mostly machine made style."

Not trying to yank your chain, but that strikes me as an odd statement. Mission sure, but G&G? I seem to picture a lot of touches (like the pegs and splines for example) requiring a delicacy to acheive their look that I find inconsistent with machine work. The desricption "simple" just has me a little preplexed, and unfortunately, I haven't the memory to quote specific pieces by name. So could you elaborate a bit?

John

Bob, can you give us an update

Wiley Horne

>on when your Greene & Greene book will be available? And will you be selling copies directly, by any chance?

Wiley

Here's my input

HC Sakman @ Victoria, BC

>Hi Moses,

The lowest horizontal member should be double in thickness. The upper section should not pass top of the doors more than 3" ~ 5" max.

Lastly, you may move the whole thing 2" to the right. This way, it'll be centered in between 2 doors; Better balance yet still room for the light switch.

Everything else seems in place.

My 2.00 Cdn. (1.80 US) cents.

Chico...

Re: Bob, can you give us an update

Bob Lang

>Thanks for the interest Wiley, and I owe you a thanks for turning me on to "Images of the Gamble House".

I wrapped up the drawings May 1, went to Canada for the Rosewood Studio Conference, and finished the text last Friday. It's being edited now, "official" release date is October 28, hopefully it will be sooner than that. I'll have copies available from my website, but don't have anything set-up as of yet. I need to get caught up first.

thanks again,

Bob Lang

Re: G & G

Moses Yoder in White Pigeon, MI

>This will not actually be in the style of Greene & Greene, except that I think their interpretation of the cloud lift is most excellent. So the cloud lift is the only part of their design I wish to have some input on. But of course I like their style and at some point will be building pieces in the G & G style, I am just not going to put that much time into this shelf because I have other things on my list this year ;) Thanks for the input, I may re-think my design a little.

Your right, I shouldn't have used

Scott Burr in Ben Lomond, CA

>"simple"... I should have said deceptively simple. Look at any G&G piece. It's a lot like mission, the same noise so to speak. G&G throws a lot more piazz into their work. Making it harder (labor intensive that is) to make with handtools. As far as the splines and plugs go, they were mostly made by a shaper with a pattern. Not mine, I'll have have to post some pics when time allows.

I'd go along with that

John in NM

>The thing that struck me is that you could make most mission pieces with nothing but machines, but I doubt you could finish off a lot of the G&G touches and shapes without hand tools. But, of course, I've never seen a genuine one in the flesh, or made any kind of real study of it.

John