Furniture expert Bruce Johnson explains how to make an arts and crafts-style shelf, incorporating a characteristic design detail of mission-style furniture, the corbel, into the pattern of the shelf brackets. Materials:
Three oak boards
Cardboard
Pencil
Measuring tape
Medium-grit sandpaper
Tack cloth
Saber saw or handsaw
Gel stain in aged oak
Clean rags
Drill
Wood glue
Clamps
Nails
Wood putty
Satin-finish polyurethane
Paintbrush
The craftsman-style shelf is made from four cut pieces of oak: two corbel-shaped brackets, a shelf and a curved back piece. - Make a cardboard pattern of a corbel. Trace the pattern from a corbel, or draw one freehand.
- Cut out corbel-shaped brackets (figure A) with a saber saw or handsaw. Cut a shelf to the desired length and a curved back piece appropriate to the size of the shelf and brackets.
- Sand all pieces with medium-grit sandpaper to soften the edges.
- Stain the wood with a heavy-bodied gel stain. Bruce chose aged-oak stain, which gives the wood a dark finish characteristic of arts and crafts style. Wipe on the stain against the grain of the wood to force it into the wood's pores (figure B), then wipe it off with the grain.
- Drill pilot holes in the corbel brackets (figure C) and the shelf where the pieces will be nailed together.
- Use wood glue to join the brackets to the curved back, and clamp the pieces together (figure D). When the glue is dry, nail the pieces together. Follow the same procedure to join the shelf to the base.
- Fill nail holes with wood putty. When the putty is dry, protect the finished shelf with a coat of polyurethane. Use a satin finish, appropriate for an arts and crafts piece.
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