Lauren's Bed - Part 6 - Final Assembly

We let the completed bed air out for a week in the house before moving it into Lauren's room.  Both Joshua and Lauren gave me a hand assembling the bed.

Once the bed was assembled, Rosemary gave me a hand moving the mattress into place, then made up Lauren's big girl bed for the first time!  Rosemary found a good deal on a polar bear comforter to keep Lauren warm.

Before Lauren could use the bed I finished up the install by adding some safety rails on the open side of the bed.  Nothing to exciting about the construction, just four boards with a 1/4" round-over on all sides.  They are held in place with 90 degree metal brackets that are screwed into the mattress support boards.  The safety rails are screwed together with 1 1/2" wood screws.

Lauren loves sleeping in her big girl bed!  At nap time in the afternoon she climbs in by herself when she gets sleepy.

I seem to have trouble finishing projects.  This one needs one more thing before it is really done.  I'm not sure when it'll get completed as I've already moved on to other projects!  The legs in the foot board don't have any end cap on them - I plan on adding some sort of removable castle decoration but didn't get around to finishing it before I assembled the bed.  Bed still works though :)

This bed was a fun and pretty simply project to do.  The curly maple wood I worked with was frustrating to work with at times, but we are really pleased with the final look.  My biggest regret is the middle panel in the top of the head board - it's colour does not match the rest of the bed.  I'm not sure how I missed that when I was assembling the bed, but it's what I notice every time I look at the bed.

One other improvement that I'll probably add to the bed is to add a lip to the top shelf of the head board.  Things keep sliding or rolling off to fall behind the bed and a 1" lip on the top would help a great deal.  I can still add it to the finished bed and I'll probably add that the same time I finish off the leg posts - any day now...

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 :

Lauren's Bed - Part 4 - Finishing Foot Board

The next step in completing this bed is finishing off the foot board.  After the top and bottom caps were dry, I needed to do some work on the posts to get them solidly to the foot board.

Before starting that I needed to cut mortises for the bed mounting hardware.  I decided to use bedlocks and hooks from Lee Valley to attach the bed rails to the legs.  I used a 3/8" spiral upcut bit and an edge guide on the router to cut the mortise for the bed hook.  For some additional work I decided to also rout out a recess to accept the flat part of the bedlock that is screwed into the leg.  I did these mortises freehand with a 1/4" straight cutting bit in the router after tracing the outline onto the leg.

The slot mortise is taller so that the hook on the rail can be slid in and then lowered into the bedlock.




The legs will be attached to the frame with 3/8" dowels.  To make sure my drilling was accurate, I picked up a set of four drill guides from Lee Valley.  After making a custom jig to fit the legs, I used a 5/8" bit to drill holes where I wanted to place the dowels.  I then knock a bushing with a hammer into those holes, then screw a 3/8" insert into the bushing.  The 3/8" insert ensures that the the hole I drill for the dowel is precisely placed and 90 degrees to the leg.

After the holes in the legs were drilled, I added spacers to on the inside of the jig and reused the jig to drill the dowel holes in the foot board panel.



Once all the holes were drilled, I glue up the end panel.  The dowels all lined up perfectly.




With the end panel complete, I used a half dozen biscuits to glue the top onto the headboard.



Now all that's left is to :

• make the bed rails
• apply finish to the bed rails, head and foot boards
• cut the poplar slats that will be the mattress supports
• safety rail
  

Lauren's Bed - Part 3 - Head board

The head board panels will be just about the same as the foot board and construction was the same. The most tedious part was gluing up the six panels for the head board. Once again the curly maple was a bear to work with. For the last three panels I gave up on resawing and just planed the 1" boards down to 1/4". A waste of wood but much less hassle than the resawing.

I again pre-finished the panels with two coats of Watco Danish Oil, then glued up the panels. The bottom panel has longer rails that will form the legs of the headboard.

Next was gluing up the panels for the two sides, shelf and top of the headboard. The sides and shelf are 8" in width, the top is 9 1/2" so all three were glue-ups. After the glue-up was dry I ran the pieces through my drum sander to smooth them out and get rid of the tear-out caused by the planer.

Once the panels were ready I cut a whole bunch of biscuits to line everything up then used all the long clamps I had to glue up the head board. The top shelf will be added later after the rest has dried.

While waiting for that to dry I gave the foot board caps a 1/2" roundover, then glued the top and bottom caps onto the footboard. I used biscuits to align the parts.

Lauren's Bed - Part 2 - Foot board

With the posts for the foot board complete, it was time to move on to the frame and panel construction for the foot board itself. I dug through the pile of curly maple to find relatively straight pieces, then used my planer sled to flatten the boards.

Next I used the tablesaw and mitre saw to cut all the pieces to size. I used the dado blade to cut a 1/4" groove through all the boards, then used the same dado blade to cut the tenons on the ends of the rails and stiles as needed.

A quick dry fit to make sure everything lines up :

The caps on the top and bottom will get a 1/2" roundover on all four edges to smooth them out, then they'll be secured to the foot board with biscuits.

Next I needed to glue up some boards for the panels. I started with some ugly twisted pieces :

I again used the planer sled and smoothed them out so they were straight :

Then over to the bandsaw to resaw them in half. Actually, I first tried one on the tablesaw but as I started to cut it pinched the blade and stopped the tablesaw. The 3hp tablesaw. Ouch. After resetting the breaker I brought it over to the bandsaw and got it done, though it again reacted pretty badly to being cut apart.

After gluing up the panels, I ran them through the drum sander for about 45 minutes to flatten them out. Quite tedious.

Now a dry fit of the entire assembly :

After sanding the panels with my random orbital sander to 220 grit, I applied Watco Danish Oil. After the finish was dry I glued up the entire panel except for the caps :

Lauren's Bed - Step 1 - Posts

Our daughter Lauren is starting to outgrow her crib. She can climb into it by herself and if she thought about it she could climb out - which would no doubt end in a fall. So it's time she moves into a big girl bed.

I built a bunk bed for Joshua and want to do the same thing for Lauren. I built his bed out of construction lumber following a plan from Canadian Home Workshop. After struggling with that construction lumber I decided I would never do that again. As I wrote earlier, I ended up buying 100 board feet of curly maple from my wood guy.

Even before I finalized the design of the bed, I knew that my first task would be to build up some posts for the foot board of the bed. That's the first thing I started with.

This is when I found out how not fun it is to work with this curly maple. Depending on the grain of the wood, I found both the jointer and the planer take big gouges out of the wood. I had to use the drum sander to clean up all of the pieces for the legs. Since the drum sander removes material very slowly this was very time-consuming. Also the kiln dried lumber I was working with was very reactionary - every piece I cut would warp and twist. It was very aggravating to put it mildly. I'm assuming that the guy who put it in the kiln dried it too quickly. I will not be buying KD wood from him again.

I tried a couple of test pieces before I built the real things. I first tried cutting 45 degree miters on the edges of the boards to glue up, but they were tricky to line up for gluing. I next looked into buying a lock-miter bit, but those seemed too expensive for this one use. I ended up cutting a 7/8" rabbet on the edge of each board, leaving 1/8" of material on the face, then gluing them together. After rounding over the edge with a 1/4" round over bit they look very solid.

The first post I glued all four sides together at once. I thought I had enough clamps and had all the joints tight but alas I did not. After unclamping I found that a few of the joints were very visible.

For the next post I glued up two pieces at a time, using some simple cauls to maintain pressure across the entire joint.

After the two pairs were dry I glued them up with more clamps and cauls. The second post came out much better.

Here's a sketchup picture of the joinery I used.

Kitchen Table - Part 3 - Finishing

This project is a big brother to the kids table I built for Joshua and Lauren earlier this year, so the finishing schedule is the same. After sanding all the parts 120-150-220 with a random orbital sander, I took them upstairs to my 'finishing room'.

I finished the table with two coats of Watco Danish Oil - Natural, following the directions on the can. I use scraps of an old t-shirt to apply the oil and wipe off the excess.

Once the oil has dried I'll apply two coats of Minwax Quick Drying polyurethane on the legs, apron and bottom of the table. I'll probably apply at least one extra coat on the top to give it a little extra protection.

Since it's winter time in the workshop and my heating situation is not so good in the workshop, I'll apply the top coats of poly in our heated house after I've moved the table in there.

Once the bottom of the top and the legs/aprons were dry from the poly I glued up the legs and aprons.

After getting it down the stairs into my workshop - I realized that I needed a little extra support for the apron / leg connection. I added the corner braces, gluing and screwing them to the aprons. Around the inside of the apron, you can see the wooden buttons I used to secure to the top to the apron.

Kitchen Table - Part 2 - Top

It took a few tries to get everything right - but the top is finally glued up. The overall size is 48x48 inches.

I first glued up three sections, each about 16". After they dried I ran them through my drum sander to smooth them out.

Next I glued up two of the three sections, then after that was dry I added the third. I used biscuits to help line them up but the glue lines were still a little off. It's tricky working with these large panels. A better way to ensure they kept aligned would have been to use a tongue and groove joint. Maybe next time.

After the top was dry I used a saw guide and my circular saw to cut it square.

Lastly, a belt sander to get rid of the uneven glue lines, then random orbital sander with 80-120-180-220 sandpaper to smooth out the tabletop and all of the legs and aprons. I'm going to apply to finish to this project before gluing it up - so that's the next step.

Kitchen Table - Part 1 - Legs and Apron

After finishing off the Craftsman Ottoman, I wanted to do another 'quick' project before starting on Lauren's bed. I chose to replace our $50 kitchen table that we bought when we first got married with a bigger version of the kids table I build for Joshua earlier this year. It'll be a simple solid red oak top, walnut apron and red oak legs.

I started with the apron boards, milling the walnut to 3" x 7/8" x 46+". I left the pieces a little long so that I could have extra for testing the tenons. After milling the wood I stacked them and set them aside until I was ready to cut the tenons.

For the legs I decided to go with 2 1/2" square legs, made up of 4 mitre pieces. To keep waste to a minimum I made them up from boards that were around 8" in width, flipping them over after every mitre cut on the tablesaw. I used my planer sled to flatten the boards before cutting the mitres on the tablesaw.

I don't have a picture of the glue-up but it wasn't particularly tricky. Just use painter's tape to hold them together and a few clamps if the pieces need a little help lining up (mine did).

After the legs were all glued up, I moved over to the router table to cut the mortises in the top of the legs. I used a 3/8" spiral upcut bit for the mortises, so ripped a piece of scrap to 1 1/16" (2 1/2" - 3/8" = 2 1/8" divided by 2) to set the fence to center to mortise in the leg.

To cut the mortise I slide the leg in to the bit along the fence, which blasts the wood chips away from the leg. I setup my shop vac to catch the chips as the regular vac port on the fence doesn't catch any of these chips. A stop block clamped to the fence makes sure I don't cut the mortise to far down the leg.

The finished leg with mortises cut in two sides of each leg. The mortises cut right through the solid part of the leg into the hollow center. The tenons will be cut next and they'll be 7/8" thick to match the thickness of the leg parts.

Craftsman Ottoman - Complete

It's good to be done another project. The ottoman is off to the upholstery shop for them to complete the cushion - it'll be awhile but I'm in no hurry to try sewing it myself.

I used the same finish schedule that I've used on most of my red oak furniture. I apply one coat of Minwax Provincial Oil stain with a foam brush, wait 10-15 minutes then wipe off the excess with a clean cotton cloth (old t-shirt). Let it dry overnight, then wipe it down with another clean shirt the next day before applying the next coat, waiting 10-15 minutes and wiping it off.

Let it dry overnight, wipe it down again with a clean cloth, then apply Minwax Quick-drying oil polyurethane. Let it dry overnight, sand lightly with a synthetic wool pad, wipe it down with a clean cloth lightly dampened with mineral spirits. Apply one more coat of poly and it's done.

Here's a shot of my upstairs 'finishing room' over the workshop.

Here's the end product, next to the original.

Hammer Peg Toy - Part 1

Someone posted a picture on Sawmill Creek the other day of a hammer peg toy that he'd made for his grandchildren. He said that the both the young and old kids loved it and I figured it was high time I made one up for my two kids.

Joshua came out to the workshop to help me with this one. First we dug through the wood pile to find a piece of walnut to form the bench after running it through the jointer, tablesaw and planer it was ready to get drilled.

I consider the drill press a pretty safe tool and Joshua has used it in the past. I set up the fence and clamp the piece in place and let him do the rest. He put 10 1/2" holes in this bench piece.

Though Joshua likes drilling holes, the other thing he really likes is cleaning up. Well, using the shop-vac anyways. The Fein Turbo II does a great job cleaning up around the shop, it's reasonably quiet and the additional 1 micron filter and bag kit make it pretty safe to use. The auto-start works great for sanding with my random orbital sander.

I found a small piece of cherry to cut up for the bench ends, and ran them through the 3/8" spiral cutter I already had on the router table to cut the dado for the bench. Next I put the bench back through the planer to size it for the dado.

After a quick dry-fit and a little bit of sanding we added glue and clamped it up to dry.

Though Joshua will no doubt get some use out of the bench, it's really for his baby sister. Lauren came out to test the bench out. I cut a few dowels for her test. I think she likes it! The mallet head is made from some scrap 1" dowel I had left over from another project, a half inch hole drilled in it then a 1/2" dowel glued into the hole for a handle.

I'll finish up the project with a coat of Watco Danish Oil, cut the rest of the pegs and smooth out the sharp edges, then turn it over to Lauren and Joshua.