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
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The plan is yours. Now the question of what comes after it.
The pedestal plan is yours to keep — cut list, exact board widths, the mitered trim frames, all thirteen build steps. It is two or three shop days plus finishing time, and there is no joinery in it you have to learn first.
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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.
Recommended Next Step
When you want the next one, and the one after that
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If this pedestal goes well and the question becomes what to build next, that is what a library is for. This one is a single plan; that one is a shelf of them.
Ted's Woodworking
A large library of woodworking plans with measured drawings and cut lists.
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Two shop days, no mortises, and something worth standing on it
Grab the plan, cut the four column boards to exactly twenty-six inches with square ends, and check the outside for square before you drive the first nail.