Free Plan: 1912 Mission Pedestal

Four overlapping boards, two mitered frames, four feet — a twenty-six inch oak pedestal with no mortises anywhere in it.

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  • Full PDF plan
  • Cut list & exact board widths
  • 13 build steps, no mortises
Mission style hollow oak pedestal, twenty-six inches tall, with a square twelve-inch top and base overhanging the post and mitered trim frames beneath each

Twenty-six inches tall, twelve inches square at the top and bottom, and hollow all the way through. It holds a vase, a sculpture, a plant pot — anything that deserves to stand at eye level instead of on a side table.

This plan comes from Mission Furniture: How to Make It, Part III, published by Popular Mechanics in 1912 and long out of copyright. The column is four boards nailed into a hollow square post. Two of them are five inches wide, two are three and a half, and they overlap at the corners rather than meeting on a miter or a corner strip.

There is no mortise and tenon anywhere in this piece. If the joinery on the more demanding plans here has been putting you off, this is the one to start with — the whole build is measuring, square cuts, and driving nails where the plan says to drive them.

Project at a Glance

Difficulty
Beginner to Intermediate
Main materials
Oak, finishing nails, wood putty, optional glue, mission stain and wax
Build time
2–3 shop days, plus finish
Tools needed
Table saw or handsaws, miter saw or miter box, try-square, hammer or finish nailer, nail set, clamps, drill for pilot holes, scraper, sander
Joinery
Nailed hollow post — four overlapping boards, no mortises, no corner strips; two mitered trim frames
Safety
A tall hollow post carrying something on top — see the note below before you load it
Source
Popular Mechanics Handbooks, 1912 (public domain)

Before you cut the column boards:

The four board widths are not a suggestion, and they are not symmetrical. Two boards are five inches wide, two are three and a half, and they overlap rather than meet — the narrow ones sit between the wide ones, so each narrow board carries the thickness of both its neighbours. Three and a half plus two times three-quarters is five. That is where the number comes from, and it is why the finished post is square. Change your stock thickness and every width in the cut list moves with it. And the eight trim pieces are not corner strips for the column: they are two mitered frames, one under the top and one over the bottom. Cut them as frames or they will not fit anything.

This is a plan you can finish in a weekend and a bit, and the reason is that somebody in 1912 worked out how to make a square post out of four flat boards without cutting a single joint.

That is the useful thing about old plans. They were written when a piece had to be buildable with what was in the shop, so the clever part is usually in the layout rather than in the joinery.

What one of the plans looks like

One plan, front to back

Every plan in the library comes with the same three things: a cut list you can total before the lumber run, measurements on every part so nothing gets scaled off a photo, and step-by-step instructions from rough stock to finish. That is the layer this pedestal plan gave you, sixteen thousand more times.

The library covers furniture, shop jigs, outdoor builds and small projects, beginner to advanced. It works with a few hand tools or a full shop, and you keep it for good.

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Also worth a look: the technique layer

Woodworking Secrets is a printed book on layout, cutting, joinery and finishing, the part a plan leaves out. The publisher sends it at no charge and you cover the shipping. It ships to US addresses. On the order page there is a box for a trial membership that is already ticked — untick it if you only want the book.

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