Maddie's Bed - Finished! *PICS* LONG...
Scott in Douglassville, PA
>[Cross-posting this on the hand tool side, 'cause I leaned on you folks quite a bit for input. While a hybrid power/hand tool project, there was more hand tool use than I'd anticipated, and made for the most enjoyable parts of this project. And for those wishing to bypass yet another insanely verbose writeup: Instant gratification shortcut]
Here we go - another project which, predictably and quite to form, spiraled out of control. Uncharacteristically, though, this one got done in relatively little time - 50 days from lumber purchase to delivery.
I'll admit to the naive assumption that a bed would be a fairly straightforward project to attack. I mean, really, it's what, four legs, four rails or so, and some simple joinery and snap together fasteners? How hard could it be?
Turns out, pretty hard.
While this bed may be completely derivative, it's actually the first time I've designed from scratch. After asking a bunch of questions here about design and construction, I immediately abandoned my initial premise of simplicity and settled on an ash bed with through tenons and bed bolts. We liked the look of an arched headboard; Hmm, I thought, bet I could segment the arch so the grain is continuous, and I could still use through tenons on it. I've wanted to try shaping legs, so I made these sweep in two directions. And we couldn't decide on a contrasting wood for use in the headboard panel, so my crafty wife started making a quilt, and the headboard would be upholstered to coordinate. I figured that the rounded, sweeped legs and upholstered headboard would soften, and make a little more feminine, a large, blocky bed.
Sounded reasonable.
Ok, bought some ash:
Sized the legs to be about 2-7/8" square, so the sweep would be noticeable but not obnoxious. Bought a hollow chisel mortiser to run the through mortises. Cut all the mortises before shaping the legs; that way, I could plow out the 3-1/4" maximum depth on the mortise with the chisel still buried in the wood. When I sliced off the opposite side, the through mortise would be revealed with no tearout on the edges.
The mortises for the arch were finicky. The arch met the leg on about a 20 angle from vertical, and I couldn't build a ramp to cut them on the mortiser. I cut as much of the waste as possible using the mortiser, and decided I could chop the rest out to layout lines using a chisel. Figured about 30-45 minutes for each mortise. Whatever. Not even sure how many hours went by on that - I don't own mortise chisels, I pare everything using shoulder power, and the depth of the mortise ended up something close to 3-1/2". Learned how to chisel to a line without a guide block, though, so it was time well spent.
Cut a bunch of tenons on the tablesaw using a sled and dado (yuck). Tuned everything with a shoulder plane. The tenons on the arch, though, were cut using kind of a corral arrangement of screwed down guides and a router. Rebuilt the jig about four times to get everything lined up correctly, and cut the tenons with about 4" of spare length (I was having trouble committing to the operation at that point). Worked out ok; cut them to final length, fit them, and kerfed them for wedges:
Finished shaping the legs, and using a router, spokeshave, and files, went from this
to this
.
Took about 3 minutes per edge. While I was figuring this to be the hardest step on the bed, it was probably the easiest.
Cut some wedges and got the headboard glued up. Hairiest glue up I've ever done - ten joints had to converge at once with clamp pressure:
After the clamps came off, it was just a matter of finishing. I ended up using some waterbased poly for this, and we'll see if the ash stays reasonably light (or at least, not yellow) for a while.
Ok, got everything together, had some help moving the mattresses, and the bed was in place:
The through tenons worked well, and look about as good as I could have hoped - they're there, and noticeable if you look at them, but not overpowering:
The arch tenons, surprisingly, closed up nicely, too:
The grain on the arch is continuous and wraps nicely, though if I were doing it again, I'd probably use five segments:
The panel sits in a rabbet and is held in place with some little wood clips in a picture frame-type arrangement. Maddie ever wants to change her room, replacing the panel's no big deal:
Well, there you go. Another simple project taken to the extreme. We wanted to have it done before our trip to the shore earlier this week; it was done last Saturday. Of course, she wants nothing to do with sleeping in it. Don't really care, though - our little girl turns two tomorrow, 9/11, and this is Daddy's present to her.
Thanks for reading, and for all the input all along the way.
Scott
