Furniture Design and Draughting

Even journeymen cabinetmakers can be apprehensive about designing new pieces; amateurs are often terrified. Alvan Nye offers help to both. The book focuses almost entirely on practical approaches to the design of traditional furniture. As he considers each area, he provides guidance such as when to use stretchers, where to put them, the limit of curve in legs, the arrangement of moldings to increase or decrease apparent thickness, plus dozens of practical construction tips to simultaneously increase structural integrity and aesthetic appeal. It is a small book but the questions asked and the answers given are as current today as they were a century ago. An excellent introduction to furniture design. First published 1907.