I produce and sell a lot of "Mission" furniture, I use flat sawn red oak.
90% of the customers don't know the difference between 1/4 sawn and flat,
nor do they care. It's the style and proportions of your work that sells and
not the figure of the grain. Also, many customers consider the ray flake a
*defect*.

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Rumpty

Radial Arm Saw Forum: http://forums.delphiforums.com/woodbutcher/start

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"Drew D. Saur" wrote in message
...
Hi, all.

I've recently gotten pretty interested in Arts & Crafts furniture (both
reproduction and antique) and am wondering something: in the recent
renaissance, have some A&C reproduction designers gotten too carried
away with "pure," extremely highly-figured quartersawn oak? It seems to
me, as I study older (original) A&C pieces, one would generally find
that pieces were constructed of a good mix of quartersawn and slightly
riftsawn lumber, even in quite prominent areas. This is true of both
"big name" (Roycroft, Stickley, Limbert) and "unsigned" pieces.

Today, some reproduction A&C furniture can be found that still uses such
a mix, while other, apparently "high end" pieces, are made of so much
highly figured oak that they don't resemble *anything* I have ever seen
from the distant past. The conspicuous ray flake in these pieces is
almost ridiculous. They don't really seem authentic to me when compared
against period pieces.

Is it possible that today's high-end craftsman furniture reproduction
"masters" have somewhat missed a point of practicality of the original
Arts & Crafts movement? Or am I missing something?

Thanks for any historical guidance anyone can offer!

Drew

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