A BABY'S CRIB - PART SEVEN

Well, I managed to do what I did not think that I could do this long weekend. I assembled both sides of the crib. When you consider that my wife and I also attended a wedding ceremony on Saturday morning and a wedding reception on Saturday evening I am surprised that I finished both sides.

I thought that it was difficult cutting 56 mortises and 56 tenons. It was, but the difficulty was in the shear quantity of work. It was more a matter of repetition. Assembling 28 tenons into 28 mortises is yet another story. I have assembled mortises and tenons before but it was usually assembling a frame or assembling legs into a table or chair. Assembly all 28 verticals into the top and bottom took some thought and a lot of coordination, both physical and mental. One of the problems was that you have to work quickly. From the time you glue the first mortise and tenon until the glue the last mortise and tenon the glue of the first set must still be wet so that you push everything together for assembly.

Following my wife's suggestion I poured some glue into a little container then used a wide artist's brush to apply the glue. The brush allowed me to deliver the glue quickly and accurately without wasting glue of applying it where I did not want it. That method helped a lot. As you can see in the picture I used my table saw as a work surface. Of course it was unplugged and the blade was out of the way. I cover the top of the table saw with a sheet of plywood and covered the plywood with newspaper then I propped the frame up on pieces of 2X4. I put glue into the bottom rail then applied glue to each tenon of each vertical as I inserted it into the mortise. Then I applied glue to the top rail, applied glue to the tenons on top then assembled everything together. The trick is to get all the tenons and all the mortises lined up. Once you get to the point of lining everything up it is simply a matter of applying the clamps and tightening everything down. I glued one wide on Saturday between going the wedding ceremony and the wedding reception. I glued the second side today after dinner.

I would say that I have broken the elephant's back. the biggest parts of the project are done. Now it is trimming, rounding all the edges, drilling holes for assembly and painting.

The worst is behind me!

A BABY'S CRIB - PART SIX

I wrote about making the two ends of the crib which consisted of the posts, a top rail, a bottom rail and the panel that is enclosed in the frame. I realize now that making the ends of the crib was the easiest part of the project.

The second part of the project is to create the sides of the crib. Both sides are open. I designed them according to CSA requirements. The vertical pieces are 1 1/2 inches wide and 3/4 of an thick. They are spaced 2 inches apart. Actually, CSA allow the verticals to be about 2 1/3 inches apart. It was easier to space them 2 inches apart.

The issue was how to secure the verticals to the top and bottom rail so that it was strong and would take lots of abuse from an active, growing baby. All things considered, I decided that mortise and tenon joinery would be the strongest joint for this construction. I had no idea what I was getting myself into. Design the joint was easy. I used the 'thirds' rule with common sense. The tenons were 1/4 of an inch thick and 1/2 an inch wide. The mortises were obviously the opposite dimensions in the rails to accept the tenons.

On paper, it looks completely doable in a short period of time. In reality, it took a lot longer than I thought it would. I have completed the process of cutting the tenons and the mortises. When I look back it was quite a task cutting 56 tenons and 56 mortises. Even though I already have a tenoning jig that I had built myself several years ago it took me and entire weekend to cut 56 tenons.

The tenoning jig works great. It holds the piece straight and tight. The problem was that the maple was so hard that I had to take small cuts or else it would burn the wood which it did anyway.

In the end, I had 56 precision cut tenons.

Now the mortises were an entirely different story. If I had a mortising fixture it would be a relatively easy job. But I do not have a mortising fixture, they are expensive and I do not cut mortises every day so I cannot justify the cost. Second choice would be to use my router on a router table. This would be a great idea but I do not have a router table. It is on my list of things that I am going to build for my work shop...right after I finish making this crib! The only logical choice was to come up with a temporary set up that I could use to cut the mortises and then take it down when I was finished which is exactly what I did. the setup worked well enough. It required a steady hand and a lot of good hand-eye co-ordination but I got all of the mortises done as well.

This is the set up. I screwed a piece of aluminum to a pine block that I had planed so that it was perfectly flat. I spaced the aluminum piece so that it lined up the router bit with the center of the rail.

Here are the first few mortises that I cut. they measured exactly in the middle of the rail. Not a bad setup.

Here you can see where I marked out the center and the edges of the mortises. I marked out the edges and put a mark on the rail where I had to place to router then I plunged three holes and cleaned out the mortise after wards. You can see that it makes a nice clean looking mortise.

Once I got the hang of it the work went fairly smoothly, it just took a long time to cut all 56 mortises.

Now I am ready to start fitting and gluing the verticals to the top and bottom rails.

A BABY'S CRIB - FOUR

It is always great to have friends and family come to visit. We get to see one another and go out and do things together. It is great! The down side is that nothing gets done. It has been over two weeks since I brought home the wood from Shaker Woods and I have been waiting impatiently to start working on it. I did spend a few hours during the week planing a few boards as I mentioned in my last post but there was a lot more to do.

After everyone left on Sunday and I returned home with my wife. I set up the planer outside and spent the next three hours planing rough cut maple boards. By dinner time on Saturday I felt that I had moved ahead. Sunday morning I spent the entire morning finishing the planing. It took me a total of eight hours to plane 60 board feet of hard maple. It took longer that i thought it would because I found that taking large cuts only led to sniping which is not very desirable so I took smaller cuts which led to more cuts and more time but in the end the results was a smooth, mirror like finish. I was really very happy with the results.

I am planning to buy myself a planer because I will need one for almost all the future projects that I am planning. I have not made up my mind yet if I am going to buy a Delta  planer





or a Ryobi planer. I have read reviews about both. The best review that I read was in Fine Woodworking about the Ryobi planer. It was an excellent review.



If anyone has any comments I would certainly be interested in hearing them.