Snail's pace...

I got the bottom rail cap glued on the other night. Basically, I glued a solid wood strip on top of the bottom rail, to cover the plywood edge. Next step is to get mortises in for the slats on both the bottom and top rail.

Ready to drill the holes for the mortises in the bottom rail:



Holes for mortises in top rail. These look pretty ragged, but don't worry--they'll clean up fine with some chisel work. The job of the drill is just to make some space so your chisel has somewhere to push the wood. The stool you can see in the lower right belonged to my grandparents. I think my grandpa used it in his shop. It's a perfect height for sitting at my workbench, drawing things out, doing math, or laying out parts on wood:



Hard to see, but three of the mortises are now done (the three on the left). This was over an hour's work. I use the cordless drill, with a 9/32 bit (mortises are 5/16) to widen the mortises slightly to accommodate for some slop in drilling with the drill press and in the width of the slats:



I forgot how long it takes to do these mortises. They are especially hard in the bottom rail, because the plywood splinters and things when using the chisels on it. The top rail should go more quickly. I am not working as slowly and carefully as I probably should. I figure this part of the bed is the part Henry will use the least. The regular headboard and footboard (which are used for the crib) also will be used with stretchers to make a full-size bed that he hopefully will be able to use for many years. The sides are used for both the crib and the toddler bed setup. The toddler bed "footboard" probably won't be used for more than 2 years.

-m

Back at it...

After a long hiatus, I am back at woodworking. I am stuck in a too-small, too-dimly-lit space for now--the 1 car garage in our rental house--but I have things set up so as to be workable.

Project #1 is to make the "footboard" to turn Henry's crib into a toddler bed. This should go fairly quickly. I hope so--I have given myself a deadline of June 12--his second birthday. I had already cut the pieces for the legs (3 pieces of 3/4 stock each), so I just had to laminate those after planing the center piece to the same thickness as the plywood I'll be using for the bottom stretcher and the top rail. That is done, and they are drilled with the holes and counterbores for the hardware:



What remains is to create mortises for the slats, cut slats to size, put 1/8" roundovers on all pieces, sand everything, assemble, and re-sand and finish. The more I think about it, the more I think June 12 is pushing it. Oh well. It is supposed to storm this weekend, so I might have 5-6 hours to put toward it, with nothing better to do.

-m