Lauren's Bed - Part 5 - Rails and Finishing

Just a few things left to finish off the bed - it's time now for the bed rails, mattress slats and some finishing.

Before cutting any wood I dug through the pile and picked the straightest boards that were 6" or greater in width.  There weren't many candidates.  I found one good one and settled on the other as the best of the worst.  After running them through the planer and jointer I had two reasonably straight boards.  Next up was rounding over the corners and for that I used a 1/4" round-over bit in my hand held router.

The bed hardware I got from Lee Valley had hooks to attach the rails to the head and foot boards.  I decided the best way to attach them to the rails was to mortise for the hooks, then screw them in place after finishing.  I figured this would be the strongest way to attach them.

After tracing the outline of the hook I used a 1/4" straight cutting bit in the router to cut really close to the line.  I finished up the mortise with a couple of chisels and got reasonably good fits on all of the hooks.

Before moving onto the finishing, I attach some support rails onto the bed rails.  The mattress slats will rest on these supports when the bed is assembled.  I glued the supports in place, no fasteners, just clamps to hold them overnight.

While waiting for the rails to dry I plane the poplar for the mattress slats down to 15/16", then cross cut them to size on the mitre saw.  I'll leave them unfinished as they'll be hidden under the mattress.

After the rails finished drying I moved everything upstairs to my 'finishing' room.  The bed rails head board and foot boards all received two coats of Watco Danish Oil, Natural.  My favourite finish at the moment, wipe it on, let it dry, wipe it on again then wipe off the excess.  Piece of cake.

After letting the Watco oil dry for an hour, I attached the hardware, then brought the project into the house to let it dry inside.  The oil finish has an odour that takes at least a week to go away, and we'll wait until the smell is gone before moving it into Lauren's bedroom.

Both kids were very excited to see the new bed.  They gave me a hand with a test assembly of the bed :