Building 18th century American Furniture

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rchampagne

Well-known member
Has anyone read Glen Huey's new book?  Some of the pieces he covers in it are of interest to me and I was wondering if the plans were at all useful.  In particular I am interested in building a Newport highboy and saw that he has one in this book.  My preferences are more toward accuracy than just building something that looks nice.  Any opinions?
Rob
 
I haven't soueen this new book, but I do have his "Building Period Furniture".

Re accuracy, I'd give him a good mark.  Re plan usefulness, in the book I have he has an "exploded" view which is very good, a series of still photos for various steps which are also good, but the "Full scale plans" on the DVD that comes with the book are very incomplete.

Still, from all that he does provide, a fairly experienced woodworker can complete the job nicely; you can probably hunt around and find the answers to the few questions he left unanswered, but I don't know of any source that will give you 100% info in one place: cut lists, exploded views, step-by-step photos, full-scale plans of everything, and dvd demos on some of the more arcane specifics.
 
Thanks for the review.  I typically do not use cut lists and generally don't need every little detail spelled out.  Mainly I'm hoping to use some measured drawings as a reference when scaling my own plans from photos, especially to ensure that the proportions are as close as possible.  An indication of correct molding profiles would also be important, as these are often difficult to accurately reproduce from an overall picture. 
Rob
 
Rob- I just did a Newport highboy after measuring the original. There's a picture of my son and I in front of it on my site- allanbreed.com. Let me know what you need-Al
 
Al,
I've been looking at the highboy in the Chipstone collection as well as some pieces by Jeffrey Greene.  Do you have a specific link for the piece you built?  I checked out your site again and saw a lot of nice pieces, just not the highboy.  Thanks for posting all the pictures.  I think we all appreciate you sharing your skill and competence with period furniture. 

I've just built two Newport lowboys, so I'm confident in the carvings, ie shell and ball and claw.  Mainly I am looking for general dimensions, overall for the lower case and upper case, height of the legs (assuming a dovetailed case).  Details I'm interested in are molding profiles.  The molding under the top on the lowboy I built was pretty simple: a fillet, cove, astragal, quarter round.  What does the waist molding look like?  And the molding on the bonnet top?  I will likely be carving that by hand. 
Thanks,
Rob
 
Rob- Click on "Allan" on the home page and the picture will come up.
I'm in Houston lecturing at Bayou Bend, but I'll get that info to you when I return later in the week. Send me an e-mail at [email protected] so I can send you some stuff directly-Al
 
Al,
I checked out the picture.  Very beautiful piece and basically exactly what I am interested in making.  I sent you an email so you would have my address. 
Thanks again for your help,
Rob
 
I spoke to Glen Huey last year about this book.  If you have his three previous books, the contents of them are all included in the new book, so there isn't really any new material.

I used his third book in building my highboy and it was a tremendous help.  He'd included a DVD showing how the cabriole legs were carved.

Herman
 
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