Baby's Cradle

I have been remiss in posting these last few weeks. It has been unavoidable. The last week of February I was preparing for a trip to China. I spent the first week or so in China. Last week I was so swamped with work and trying to re-adjust to being in our time zone that I have not had time for posting. While I was in China I had no access to the blog site. China blocks most social networking sites. Why that is would be a whole series of posts so leave that for another time.

Before i went to China I had been working on a cradle that I am making for my youngest daughter who is due in June of this year. I wanted to make something for my first grand child so I offered to make a cradle as well as the crib. Strange as it may sound, the cradle is considerably more complex than the crib will be.

The plans that I bought were for an old fashioned cradle but my daughter did not like the design so my wife and I changed it to suit my daughter's taste so the finished product will look significantly different that this picture. The plans are good for giving general dimensions and the attachment of the joints. Other than that, everything else is different.

I wanted to get as much done before I left for China so that I would need fell that I was behind while I was away. I had glued up the bottom supports for the stiles that hold up the cradle.

 

The joints for the stiles and the base are mortise and tenon joints but I do not have a mortise jig so I cut the mortise into the two halves of the base then glued them together. I could cut the tenons using the tenoning jig that I had made for the kitchen doors that I made for our kitchen.

Once I had the base glued together and the tenons cut I made a dry fit to see how the cradle supports and the base went together.

To my relief they went together nicely.

I also cut out the ends for the cradle and cut up the pieces for one side.

Unfortunately, that is about as far as I got before I left for China. The project was on my mind while I was away so I worked on it last Monday, the day after I returned from China. I finished all the pieces for the stand, then pinned and glued everything together.

So that is where I am today. The stand for the cradle is glued together and I am working on the sides for the cradle itself. Hopefully that will be done within the next week and and I can assemble the cradle. One that is done it will just be a matter of sanding, painting and assembling the cradle to the stand. I hope to have this done by the end of March.

I would like to write a series of posts about China. I think that I have a few interesting things to say about that subject but that will have to wait until the next post which will be a lot sooner than the last one.