The mattress needs a support.  I tried finding one online that I could purchase, but struck out.  I can see that some kits come with a metal frame that you attach with suspended brackets of some type.  I suspect that long bracket allows the crib mattress to be set higher when the baby is smaller.

Not finding one on the web that I could purchase, I fell back to the original plan which was to use the Poplar wood we bought when we bought the walnut.  Using that, I cut dados in several pieces.  After sanding and staining them, I ripped the boards into inch and a quarter wide pieces.  Everything got sanded again and stained so that the parts were ready for assembly.  I opted just to use glue and clamps and ignored the tendency to screw everything together.

Trimming Supports

With the crib partially assembled, I cut the support pieces to length and marked the location of the screws on the ends.  After everything is put back together, a final measurement will be used to finish cutting the lattice framework to size.

Since there are a lot of pieces sticking out all around that needed a little trimming, I got out the miter saw that belonged to Judy’s Dad and trimmed all the end pieces at once.  Using a scrap piece as a guide that was clamped to the frame, the miter saw slid nicely along and each piece was cut quickly to length.  Unfortunately, I could not really use the long saw on the sides, so they were cut one at a time.

Plugs With Magnets

As mentioned in an early blog, we decided to use rare earth magnet to help hold in the plugs that will cover the holes of the large screw heads.  These screws hold the sides to the frame.  The plugs got a dollop of epoxy and a magnet attached to each one.  Those tiny magnets have an amazing amount of attraction to one another.  It was a little challenging to get each one separated so that they could be attached to the plug.

Crib Ready for the Shower

The crib made an appearance at the shower.  With Judy’s help, we assembled the crib without glue, and with half the number of screws that are required.  Even so, the crib proved quite solid and looked very good.

The day of the shower, nearly 30 people showed up.  Not many knew about the crib, so it was fun for Jodi to be able to announce that her hubby and father built it for the baby.  The pictures don’t do justice, but more will come as we finish it.

Crib with Jodi and Me

But, it made it!

The challenge before Tyler and me was to make this crib so that it is solid, but can be dismantled between babies.  The type of bolt assembly proposed in the original plans simply appeared too coarse.  I spent some time thinking about it, and came up with several plans.  My preference, and original plan involved plain old screws covered by wooden plugs.

However, safety concerns caused me to second guess that plan.  In order to assemble and reassemble that plugs need to be wedged and not glued.  Over the years though, I have seen little fingers examine every crevice and bump.  The last chance we could take would be for one of those plugs to come out and get swallowed or choked upon.

In explaining this to Tyler, and the options that I presented, he countered with a great idea.  In his hobby of remote control planes they often use rare earth magnets to hold the cockpit on the plane.  Their strength keeps them secure even in bumps and in flight.  It was a perfect solution.  So, we will use screws.  Small rare earth magnets that are 1/4 inch by 1/10 inch will be epoxied to the backs of the wooden plugs.

Screw Holes

With that decided, I could then move forward with locating long screws and drilling holes.  I must say, drilling a hole large enough for the screw head made me nervous.  One little slip would ruin the side of the leg.

Using a drill press and a brand new 1/2 inch brad point bit though proved to work perfectly.  I then chucked up a 6 inch long 3/16 inch bit and drilled through the legs for all 8 screws.

Clamped for Drilling

Attaching the ends to the legs in exactly the right spot where the screws came through the legs appeared to be my last big challenge.  I chose to cut some scrap 2×4 material to just over 1 inch in width and clamped those on each side of the rails.  That made them exactly the same width as the legs.  Then I clamped longer scraps of wood over those spacers and the legs to keep the rails exactly centered.

With a bit of measuring, I cut scraps to fit under the bottom rail to keep everything at the right height.  One final clamp to pull the end tight against the leg gave me a solid setup for drilling.

With the leg clamped in the vise between to Rockler bench cookies (I love these things!), I drilled through the legs and into the rails for each leg and set of rail ends as you can see in the picture.

It still is not quite ready for gluing, but it is going to be ‘assembled’ enough for the baby shower this Saturday.

Last Saturday, Tyler and I got together to glue up the two crib ends.  Each end has 7 slats, and two rails.  We dry fitted each of the pieces before gluing to be certain that everything would fit as expected before we put on the glue.

Each end took all of my larger clamps, so we let the first one sit for nearly an hour before we took off the clamps and worked on the other end.  Both ends turned out looking pretty good.

To make certain that each was square, we measured diagonally from corner to corner and then across the other diagonal.  I personally was very pleased to see them measure square after being clamped.

Lastly, we laid each glued up end down on two pieces of 1.5 inch square channel iron that I picked up last year and clamped down each corner.  This gives each end a flatness that we needed.

The baby shower at our house this weekend places pressure on us to have the crib to a state that you could see it together.  I don’t think that is going to happen, but we are still trying.

Glued Ends

Mitering the Posts

Like most cribs, this one has 4 posts or legs.  Each leg is made up of 3 pieces of wood glued together.  Since we diverged from the original plan, the posts and the headboard were the last pieces to work.

I decided to chamfer the tops at a 45 degree angle to finish the tops.  After pondering how to make these all consistent, I decided to start with the miter saw that belonged to Judy’s Dad.  This is a great miter saw, but I realized when I got it out that it needed more cleaning than I had time for last night.  So, I put a lot of waste wood in place so that the legs would not get scratched or end up with rust from some of the older exposed metal.

I cut about 4 of the chamfers with the saw.  The thought that I enjoyed during these cuts is that this was a 4 generation span.  The saw belonged to the Great Grandfather of the baby that will lie in the crib.  That seemed pretty cool to me.

I finally ended up cutting the rest of the chamfers on the router table to get a little smoother cut.  I ended up spending quite a bit of time cleaning them all up with 220 and then 320 sandpaper, and hitting the rest of the legs with the same grits.

I was excited to finish the sanding today, because that was the last of the sanding on the raw walnut.  I think the wood dust of walnut bothers me, and I am happy to be done with it.

I stained each of the legs and set them out to dry for a few days.  The light in the room where they are drying is not the brightest, but they look great.  I hope to be able to get them assembled before the baby shower, but with work items that are coming up, that is probably not going to happen.