Panel Dry Fit

It's good to see some real progress being made.

I recalibrated my mitre saw using the method described in this post, then cut all the rails and stiles to length.

Next, I cut the 3/8" panel groove in all the rails and stiles using my Canadian Tire dado blade - it's an okay blade but don't buy it unless it's on sale for 50% off - this usually happens at least twice a year.

Finally I planed three of the large panels to fit the groove, then trimmed them to fit into the frames. The rails and stiles are joined with loose tenons which seems a great way to join them, much easier than cutting the tenons on the rails/stiles. This is the first time I've used a loose tenon and I think it's my new favourite (too soon to tell for sure).

I still have to sand the panels before I actually glue this panel up. 3 more to go after this one. As well, I still have to glue up 6 more panels.

Stock Preperation

I spent a few hours prepping rail and style stock, cutting the mattress support boards and then gluing up half the panels for the frame-n-panels headboard/footboards. Generated another two or three bags full of sawdust. The work is progressing nicely.

Mortise x 7

Finished up cutting the next 7 mortises for the safety rails on the bunk bed legs. Cleaned up some sawdust and that was it for the night.

Mortise Jig #2

The legs in the bunk bed each need two 1-1/8"x 4-1/8" x 1-1/4" mortises to recieve the safety rails for the top bunk. Though I could cut these with the router using an edge guide, I prefer to use a patterning bit and a custom jig to make sure I don't make any mistakes.

I use my Freud FT2000e plunge router, along with the template guide kit and 3/8" spiral upcut bit. The 3/4" (external diameter) adapter means I need to add 3/16" on each side of the mortise template to get it the correct size.

So the 1-1/8" width needs to be 1-1/2" in the template, the 4-1/8" needs to be 4-1/2". Here's a sketchup model of the jig I made up using 5/8" hardboard.

Here are the pieces cut and ready to be glued up and below you can see the first mortise cut and the jig clamped to the leg ready for the next mortise.

Clean up, clean up, everybody do their share

That's the song we sing at the end of the night when we are at playgroup for my son. Last night I cleaned up the piles of shavings from yesterday's planing. Ended up with another 2 full garbage bags, so I've got 4 total from this project. Lots more to follow.

I also put a 45 degree chamfer on the all four edges of each leg. I used a chamfer bit in my handheld Porter Cable 690 router (this one). What a great little router. Another one of those tools that puts a smile on your face everytime you use it. It's well designed and a pleasure to use.

One accessory I'd like to try for this router is the D-Handle base. (See it on amazon here) I see Norm using it all the time and it looks like it would be really handy.

Bags and Bags of Shavings

The author of the article that I am following to build the bunk bed mentions that you'll have to do a lot of work with the planer for this project and after last nights work I can see what he meant.

First I had to glue up the leg caps which just about drained what is left of my 4L jug of glue. Since I've had that jug for 5 or 6 years I guess I can't complain. I stacked the legs one atop another to distribute the clamping pressure and used all my Bessey + one old pipe clamp to hold them together. Similarily to when I laminated the legs up I could have used a few more clamps - when will Lee Valley have another sale???

Once the glue was dry I used the table saw to cut the oversized leg caps a little closer to the size of the legs, so that there was about 1/8" leftover. Then I used the router and a flush trim bit to trim the caps flush.

I should mention before I glued up the leg caps that I ran all the legs through the jointer to clean up two faces, than through the table saw to cut them close to width, than finally the planer to get the width correct before adding the caps. Running the 7' leg through the jointer was challenging in my small shop area.

The last step was to plane all of the legs down to 3 5/8". This is what generated another two garbage cans full of shavings and clogged up the dang dryer hose I use to connect the planer to the dust collection pipe. I eventually gave up clearing the hose and just pulled the dust collection bit off the planer and let the shavings fly. I ended up with quite a pile of shavings, but all four legs are squared up and ready to go.

Milling Leg Caps

The solid legs for the bunk bed are made up of three laminated boards, which leaves two sides of the leg with lamination lines that are to be covered with leg cap strips. These strips will be cut from a 2x10 and planed down to 1/4" before being glued to the legs.

The glued up legs are rough cut to 7', 4 1/2" wide so I started with a 4 1/2"x7' piece of 2X lumber which is actually 1 1/2" thick. I used the tablesaw to resaw this into 3x3/8" caps. I took three cuts for the resaw, the first cut was a little less than halfway through. I used a featherboard to keep the wood tight against the fence and a push block (upper left of picture) to finish off the cut.

For the second cut, I flipped the board and again used the featherboard and push block to cut less than halfway through the board. This left about 3/8" of material to cut away.

Finally I raised the blade and cut through the remaining bit of wood. After pushing the start of the piece through the blade I inserted a scrap wedge to act as a splitter (I should have one installed on the insert).

I cut up three boards and ended up with 9 leg cap strips. For me this was a 'scary' operation on the tablesaw. Raising the blade high and running long pieces through it is a bit nerve-racking. I took my time and made sure to use the pushblock anytime I got near the end of the piece, and also kept myself away from the back of the board in case of kickback. In the end I had no problems and am glad it's over.

Back to work

After time off for vacation and sickness I am back in the shop and finally started on the bunk bed. I dug through the wood pile to get to the 2x10s stacked underneath the 2x8s (duh!) and selected two nice ones and one ugly one to glue up to form the blanks for two legs.

I first cut them down to 7' to get them to the approximate length of the legs. Then I ran each through the planer a few times to clean up the surface, ripped them in half and glued them up to form two leg blanks. After letting the glue dry I'll scrap it off then put them through the jointer and planer to square up the blanks.

It took about 45 minutes between starting the planing and finishing the clamping. Note to wife : need more clamps (these 24" bessey clamps will do nicely). Planing the 10" wide boards generates a lot of sawdust - more than my 1hp and dryer vent hose can easily handle. I need to run rigid ducting to the planer to give it more suction power.

Painting and Staining aren't so bad after all...

I've always disliked painting. It's been my least favourite part of any project. Trying to paint around trim or windows, keeping the paint from getting on the ceiling or the walls and cleaning brushes have always frustrated and annoyed me.

This past month I've done more painting that I have in the past 5 years. This weekend was a painting/staining marathon for me. I did windows, doors, trim and then to finish it off I stained the deck as well.

At the start of the weekend I thought that'd I'd be so sick of painting that I'd never want to pick up a paintbrush again for the next 5 years.

But come Sunday afternoon it didn't seem so bad. Cleaning brushes isn't so bad after all. As long as you don't get too crazy over the trim it doesn't seem to be too difficult. Hmm.

I haven't painted for two days now and I kind of miss it. I'll look around for something to touch up tonight...