staked furniture and George Nakashima

[overland]

I've been reading Mira Nakashima's wonderful book about her father, Nature Form and Spirit. I've been particularly interested in the lovely stools and small chairs he made that are very simple, just turned legs fasted to a seat, with no spindles or other bracing. It made me think of the staked stool / saw bench that I recently made. Except that the legs don't go all the way through the seat--which is nice if the seat has especially nice figure. I assume that they must be straight and not tapered where they enter the seat, and not wedged. Or maybe they are wedged? My question is this: how do you think he fastened these legs to make the joint strong enough to hold, and to keep holding, in the absence of any kind of bracing? Beyond my staked stool and some one legged stools I made for my son's school, I have little experience with this kind of construction.

[brianwelch]

Might you be thinking along these lines?:

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/364087951101336021/

[wmickley]

I saw my first piece of Nakashima furniture at a friend's house in December 1965. It was kind of a novelty at the time. Hard to believe it has been fifty years.

I remembered there was a mention of the leg to seat joint in an old Fine Woodworking magazine so I looked it up to be sure I was remembering right. He bored a straight hole, used white glue, and pinned the joint with a small diagonal dowel. It is not a repair friendly joint; if someone did this today I would call it throwaway furniture.

Nakashima was a master at self promotion and marketing, joinery not so much. If you want a strong stool I would recommend a through tenon with wedge and stretchers between legs, a more traditional approach.

[overland]

If I don't wedge the legs from above but attach blocks underneath to build up the top where I insert them would that provide enough strength to do away with stretchers? Or will shrinkage and seasonal change inevitably loosen the joints? The dilemma I face is the seat I have in mind has very nice grain and I hate to mar it with through tenons and wedges.

[wmickley]

overland said:

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If I don't wedge the legs from above but attach blocks underneath to build up the top where I insert them would that provide enough strength to do away with stretchers? Or will shrinkage and seasonal change inevitably loosen the joints? The dilemma I face is the seat I have in mind has very nice grain and I hate to mar it with through tenons and wedges.

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I think the big question is how deep is the socket that is to hold these legs. If the seat is 7/8 thick, socket is not much more than 3/4, whereas if the seat is 1 3/4, the socket can be maybe an inch and a half.
A thicker seat can be lightened with a heavy chamfer on the bottom.

You might take a look at what we call in Pennsylvania a Moravian chair.
They have a seat around 7/8, but underneath they have a shallow sliding dovetails that holds battens that are maybe 1 or 1 1/8 thick. These battens slide in from the back (cross grain) and the legs go through the batten and into the seat. Maybe 1 3/8 or 1 1/2 inch socket altogether. Alternatively you could attach battens on the underside of the seat (with the grain) to deepen the socket and give more support.

Some people also have stretchers that are high enough to be somewhat hidden by the seat.

[Bob-Jones]

You could laminate the seat. Make the top with thru tenons and wedges with a piece of wood the same species as your special piece. Then laminate the special piece on top. Seems like a lot of work to avoid a thru tenon, which I always think looks nice.

[overland]

By a coincidence, I happened to see a photo of some short three legged stools that Sam Maloof made. (They are in a book called Artists' Handmade Houses.) Maloof used through tenons. The seat is surprisingly thin, however. The same book shows that Maloof also made a Nakashima-like slab coffee table for his house using a crotch-figured slab. The top rests on a single pedestal made out of a natural chunk of wood, maybe a stump or a part of a stump.