Archive for ‘Crib’

Crib Stains

By John, 3 June, 2010, No Comment

The crib project continues, but the blogging lags. As noted in the previous blog, some of the slats required additional work. After Tyler and I stained some, I knew that several showed too many marks from sawing. I went back over each one and set aside the slats that needed more work.

For the most part, I used a block plane to lightly trim the bad areas which primarily included edges, but several faces had snipe marks from the power planer that showed clearly after being stained. I then sanded those spots so that the texture would blend with the previously sanded area. The plane leaves a different surface, and I did not want two different looks.

All told, I spend a couple of hours doing that but I think they look 100% better.

I expected to spend a lot of time on the crib over the Memorial Day weekend, but after getting a sinus infection Thursday, that planned got scrapped. I did sand several other pieces and then stained all the currently sanded pieces last night.

There are two large pieces yet to sand, and all four legs. Once the stain cures on everything, it is time to start wiping on a finish. The plan is to use a wiping polyurethane which will be durable, maintainable and a lot easier to apply than with a brush. This crib contains so many edges that brushing would be a nightmare. After one or two coats of poly, we will glue the pieces together finally and it will look like a real piece of furniture.

Additionally, a frame and supports needs to be constructed for the mattress to lie upon, but those will be made from Poplar wood. I thought about buying the springs, but they are actually hard to find. I think the wood will look nice and be easily maintained over the years.

Will it be done in time for the baby? Dunno. Stay tuned.

Crib Sanding

By John, 20 May, 2010, No Comment

Last week, Tyler and I spent some time sanding the parts to the crib. With 42 slats and various other parts, a lot of sanding took place. Rain was forecast for the day, but we had beautiful temps, sun and a light breeze. So, we took the pieces to the deck and worked there where the dust could float away freely, eliminating the need for dust masks and cleanup. As usual, we enjoyed the conversation on a number of subjects, as we sanded.

I noticed that several of the slats contained saw marks on the edges, and some even showed burn marks. The 220 grit paper I appropriated did not successfully eliminate those issues, so we will need to revisit several slats. I expected the heavy stain that Jodi indicated she preferred to cover some of the burns. But, she now would like a lighter staining that shows more of the wood grain. That sounds good to me, and I would like that too, but now we must eliminate those burns and marks.

So, I think I will get out some coarser paper, and start sanding…

Crib Shaping

By John, 26 April, 2010, No Comment

Shavings From Crib Legs

This weekend, I decided that I better get back to the crib if this baby might show up early. I glued the legs together a few weeks ago, each one made of three pieces of walnut. Finished legs measure around 42 inches at the moment, but the front two will be cut shorter. Before I ran the legs through my power planer and possibly messed up a blade, I decided to get out the plane that belonged to Judy’s dad. With Curt’s No. 7, I cut down the dried glue areas and then flattened two sides of each leg so that I could run them quickly through the jointer before I rand them through the planer later on. As you can see from the photo, I created a pretty pile of shavings after working all four legs.

Sized Slats

If you compare this stack of slats to an earlier picture that I put up, you might not seem much difference in a quick look. However, each slat is now exactly the same size, smooth and each has a 1/8 inch round-over on every side.

I cut floating tenons too to fit into the ends of these 42 slats, so pretty soon, I should be ready to glue these things to the rails.

But first, everything needs a final sanding, and some stain before the glue comes close. I want to avoid any glue spill over on this job, and there is way too much to tape off to avoid glue bleed.

I think I will wait for a nice day, and then take these pieces outside and let the sanding dust fly to the wind. That will keep the whole house a lot cleaner.

Baby Crib Slats

By John, 14 April, 2010, No Comment

Last Saturday, Tyler and I focused on getting slats ready for the crib.
The original design called for solid wood panels on the ends, but we
decided to change this for a more contemporary and open appearance.
Removing the two solid panels added to the count of needed slats, which
bumped up the total to 42.  

Now 12 slats short and out of useful wood pieces, I tried gluing some
narrow, left-over strips together to make viable pieces.  I succeeded in
getting 12 that might work, but only 5 really looked like something natural
and not two mismatched pieces of wood slapped together.  So, I picked up
some more wood from a local source, and I got them ready for Saturday when
Tyler arrived.

On a bed of this type, two options present themselves for getting that
traditional slat look.  The first option is to mortise and tenon every slat
in the crib, which means an awful lot of work.  The second option, which
the plan I bought off the Internet suggested is to fake it.  

That plan made use of pieces of wood for top and bottom with grooves cut
along their length.  The slats fit into those grooves and small pieces of
wood sat between each slat to act as spacers, to give strength and to hide
the fact that the slats did not sit into a mortise.  In reality, that gave
the crib an old fashioned look with lots of edges for little fingers to
grip, and a bric-a-brac look.

Since making tenons is much easier to make than mortises, we utilized The
Mortise Pal I purchased months back for this project.  The rails we did
last time we worked together, but now we needed tenons on the slats.  If
the hole created by the Mortise Pal left square corners, the tenons could
be made by cutting a tenon on each end of the slat with a table saw.  But
the mortise has rounded corners because they are made with a router bit.
So, we decided to make floating tenons.  A floating tenon is a short piece
of wood that is put into two mortise slots and glued together.

So, now we needed to mortise 84 holes in the ends of our 42 slats; one
hole in each end.  Making a mortise, even in a slat that is 1.5 inches wide
and ¾ thick, proved to be simple with this product.  Working together as a
team, we sat two slats at a time in the vise.  Earlier in the week, I made
a jig that slipped over the end of the slat and quickly provided the
stability and perfect spacing for the Mortise Pal.  

The plunge router sat down easily and made a quick hole.  With Tyler
moving the jig and flipping the wood, we burned through the first 30 slats.
The few that I glued were not quite the same thickness and the new wood
from the local vendor was also thicker.  Since they did not fit over the
thicker slats, we did those by hand.  But again, working as a team, we
knocked them out quickly.

Mortised Slats

The Baby Crib Begins

By John, 6 March, 2010, 3 Comments

My garage finally warmed up enough last week that I was able to dig out the walnut that my son-in-law Tyler and I purchased for making a baby crib for he and Jodi’s firstborn. The wood sat for several weeks due to the brutal cold.

Cutting a Square End

Today, Tyler came over and we started working in earnest on the construction. Few plans exist on the web for making a crib, but I purchased one that seemed okay. However, after some examination, it clearly fell short of my daughter’s tastes and mine too. So, the plan provides only some reference points.

Tyler Marking Centers

We started by preparing to mortise 84 holes. That would be a daunting task were it not for a purchase that I made a few weeks back. The Mortise Pal came through big time today, as Tyler and I teamed up to move the guide along and plunge the holes. I expected that this would be the make or break moment for this tool, and today it paid back all the money I paid for it. What a great tool!

The crib has 1 1/2 inch wide slats with 2 inch spacing between each slat. I needed to figure is this spacing was going to work out, so being a former programmer, I jumped into my editor and wrote a quick Java program to do some calculations for me to see if that combination would work for the front/back and sides. It was perfect!

I also love my DeWalt router. I bought a kit with three bases, DW618B3, and that choice also paid off. I currently keep a dovetail setup in one base, and The Mortise Pal setup in the plunge router base. Here you can see Tyler set to go.

Tyler Routing

This model sports a hookup for my shop vac which proves to be much noisier than the router, but helps keep the dust level way down. Still, later in the process, Tyler was covered with chips because the Mortise Pal ejects out the side. I mounted a Jet air filtration system a month back with my wife’s help, and that really cuts down on the dust in the air.

This last pictures shows our finished work. That was a lot of holes, and I know that doing them by hand would have been a tremendous amount of time.

Mortised Parts

The entire process went so quickly that we spent time marking out and ripping the pieces that we need for legs and a few extra pieces left over for slats. We might have purchased enough wood to do the entire thing, but I am kid of doubting it. If we did, we will look like geniuses.

Stay tuned on that one to see if we do any bragging.

Patina Reflections