Crib build

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229
Location
Vernon, WI
Well I don't know if you remember but a couple of months ago I was asking you guys about finishes for a crib. It's been awhile but I've finally been working on building it. I was able to borrow a mortise attachment from a family member for my drill press. Man did that thing save some time, and accuracy. I finished building both side pieces completely and today I'm going to head down to the basement to work on building the front section. Sorry no pics yet, but I thought I'd leave you waiting anxiously :) I should be able to post some either tonight or tomorrow sometime
 
sure,, :)

we have heard that before pics coming tonight or tommrrow,, uh huh you bet oh wait amin i thinki might have said that once my slef:eek: well we wil be expecting them as soon as you get them here westley:thumb: oh if you havent seen IT yet yu better go look its in the flat work section...CALLED "IT"
 
Well I don't know if you remember but a couple of months ago I was asking you guys about finishes for a crib. It's been awhile but I've finally been working on building it. I was able to borrow a mortise attachment from a family member for my drill press. Man did that thing save some time, and accuracy. I finished building both side pieces completely and today I'm going to head down to the basement to work on building the front section. Sorry no pics yet, but I thought I'd leave you waiting anxiously :) I should be able to post some either tonight or tomorrow sometime

ya gotta love that mortise attachment. A nice sharp chisel bit cuts through most hardwoods like butter.
 
we have heard that before pics coming tonight or tommrrow,, uh huh you bet oh wait amin i thinki might have said that once my slef:eek: well we wil be expecting them as soon as you get them here westley:thumb:

I believe you when you say you've heard that before lol, But really here are some pics and it's only been one day!

Actually this is my first time trying to put pictures in the middle of my reply (with help from vaughn's pic tutorial!), so forgive me if it's messed up :)

This first one is of the frame members of the sides of the crib that will hold the slat style spindles. I do not have a picture of all the mortises cut out in them for the spindles sorry, it did look kinda cool :thumb:

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This one is of all the spindles, cut, tenoned, and quarter rounded on all 4 sides ready to go!

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This next one is the frame of the sides of the crib that will hold spindles. First I clamped them together like so withOUT glue so that I could run the router with a quarter round bit on the inside and not have the spindles get in the way...

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...Then unclamped them and took them back apart and it looks like this...

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Then ran and got myself some slower curing glue to give me time to glue all the little tenons on the spindles and mortises (with angie's help :thumb:) and throw everything together as quick as possible, hammer it together (I used blocks don't worry), and clamp it down tight to get this...

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...I'd just like to note that I used Titebond's extended glue and the bottle told me I had 30-45min before it would start to set up and there is no way. It set up much quicker than that. Do you guys have any suggestions as to something I could use that would take longer? Like hours or so?

Anyway, back to the exciting stuff. This next piece is going to be the bottom piece on the front of the crib that will hold the spindles. Used the ole 3 screws and a string trick to create half of an ellipse on the bottom :) After I mortise for all the spindles I will cut the shape out on my bandsaw...

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...results of the string trick...

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...and finally from last night, the layout of all the spindle mortises for the top and bottom rails of the front...

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I didn't get as much done as I would have liked to last night, but since the economy sucks and I'm temporarily laid off again!, I'll have time to work on it today :D
 
looking good westley,

i know where you are, i been there with all those spindles.

smart move routing the frame before putting in the spindles, i woulda have forgotten to do that...:doh:

keep the pics comin

chris
 
hey westly would you show us the string trick alittle more or explain it further.. from you first shot it looks like a triangle but your line shows ellipse.. thanks
 
Hey thanks very much for the comments guys. Got a little time to work last night, and maybe some more tonight as well.

Larry, there are actually 3 different ways to layout an ellipse. This one is definintely the quickest, though. I hope I can explain this well enough on here...

You need to know how wide and how tall (at the center) you want your ellipse, or in this situation just half of an ellipse.

First you need a major axis, which in my case was just the edge of the board. I wanted my ellipse to end ~2 inches in from each end of the board, so by marking those that gave me a length of the major axis (AB). Mine ended up being 42 1/2" Then you need to mark a centerline between AB. Now on the centerline mark the height you want (in my case 3") the ellipse to be and consider that Point C.

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Now take half the major axis (21 1/4") and swing it with your tape measure from point C until it crosses the major axis. Do this on both left and right sides and we'll call them points D and E...

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Points C, D, and E are where you need to put screws (or nails). The screw or nail in point C is temporary, but since it requires you to put a hole in your workpiece, I always make sure that the edge of the screw is just inside my mark. Otherwise if you center the screw on your mark by the time you remove it and cut your shape out you'll have a hole half the diameter of whatever screw you used and that would not look pretty :thumb: Since this is only half an ellipse, my major axis is the edge of the board so I obviously can't put a screw in points D and E. So all I did was clamp a piece of scrap on each side so I could run a screw in there. The only advantage to screws instead of nails is they are easier to remove without damaging the workpiece. And the advantage of nails to screws is that the sharp edges of the screws might shear the string, but no big deal use whichever u please. Now take a string and tie it to either screw D or E, NOT C since you'll be taking it out in a min. The thinner the string the better, but nothing to weak so maybe like a nylon dry line if you have it would probably work best. After you tie it to either D or E just wrap it around all 3 screws to make a complete triangle and tie it off again to the screw you ended on, which will be the one you started with :rolleyes: The green represents the string. Make sure you stretch it as tight as you can amongst the 3 screws...

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Now remove the screw or nail in point C, keeping screws D and E in the wood with the string attached. Now just grab your pencil and push outward with it against the top half of your string that's attached and it will naturally guide it into an ellipse as you swing it left and right until it lands exactly on your original marks A and B :thumb: You now have half of an ellipse!

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To make a full ellipse just simply use the lower half of the string to make a perfect mirror image :)

Give it a whirl, they're pretty fun to make and once you get the hang of it you can whip them out in no time. Let me know if you have any questions on that I hope I explained it well enough. Now I have to get working on a crib :)
 
Larry you are welcome. I try to look for any chance I can to help out on here. You guys have helped me out with a ton on this site with all sorts of stuff, so I'm just trying to help out with whatever I can... which isn't much, I have many years to learn :)

Well I've got some more pictures for you guys. Between a little work last night and tonight I got the 2 front posts cut and routered and a lot of the back piece of the crib cut.

Here are the 2 front posts. I gave them a 1/4" round edge also. I'm pretty much going to give everything a rounded edge actually, don't want the baby bumping their head on anything or getting any slivers! I stopped the routered edge at 2-3/4" from the end which is how tall the base molding is that I'm wrapping around the bottom of the posts. Nothing too fancy just some short standard colonial base to give it a little touch (pic shown)...

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For the back section of the crib I am building well I guess you would call it a panel system? Pretty much building like what a raised panel door in your house would look like. Except I don't have a raised panel bit set or a router to even handle something like that (yet :D). So I'm just going to fit in some 1/2" MDF panels and then border it with some cove trim I picked up.

Here are pics of the side stiles (I think that's what you'd call them?) for the back panel system. These will also end up being the 2 rear legs that hold the crib up. I stopped the saw blade where the bottom rail will connect to it so that you will not see any of the groove that's cut out. Then I chiseled out the rest. Boy a Dado blade would have been nice here! I actually bought one for my brother-in-law for Christmas, do you think he'd notice if it was slightly used? :dunno::)...

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Then I finished cutting the rest of the parts for the back system and cleaned up any little remains with a chisel...

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Here's a look at what the back system will look like and the cove molding that will wrap around the panels once it's all glued together

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Thanks for lookin! :)
 
Looking real good, Westley. :thumb: I really like your string method for laying out the curve. I suspect you taught a lot of old dogs a new trick with that one.

Good luck on the job prospects, too. Pretty lousy time of year to be laid off, but it's kind of the nature of the carpentry business, huh?
 
:thumb:
Looking real good, Westley. :thumb: I really like your string method for laying out the curve. I suspect you taught a lot of old dogs a new trick with that one.

Good luck on the job prospects, too. Pretty lousy time of year to be laid off, but it's kind of the nature of the carpentry business, huh?

Yep I have showed 2 guys that I work with that ellipse trick :thumb: They thought it was pretty cool. Thanks for your thoughts, Vaughn. You're right it can be the nature of carpentry to get slow around winter, but there have also been years where it's been non stop. But for sure isn't like that this year. There are only 2 carpenters working at my company right now, not even getting 40hrs in, and they've been there for about 15 years! They did tell me I'd be the first to get called back, so that is great to hear, but who knows when that will be :dunno: No companies are hiring around here either, it's getting pretty slow. Hopefully picks up soon.

westley, are you going to paint this crib when its done?(Looking great so far)

Yes, sir it's painted! Because of this, I got to use Poplar which was a little cheaper. If it were getting stained, I was thinking about Alder. But it's all painted now, no turning back :)

question not asked yet???? is this crib for your new youngun? or another couples?

Sorry for not pointing this out Larry, I mentioned this in a different thread. But it is NOT for me :D It is for my girlfriend's sister and her husband :thumb: They had NO idea they were getting it as a gift so it was awesome. She is due in early February with their firstborn.


Well, here are the pics. I would have posted them sooner but as you can imagine it was very busy around here upto the holiday. I spent most of my time working on this crib and doing some other shopping. Plus there was a stretch of about 4 days our internet was down so I didn't get to sign on here :( But I lived and now I'm back to post the pics ;)

I built all of this in an area in our basement, which is a bit crowded and shared with other objects such as a piano, my keyboards, and this big thing...
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...and behind door number one...
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My dad's jukebox! He would have killed me if this thing wasn't covered up!

Anyway, here's a pic of my "cross sled" (don't have one). Had to take the miter guide, clamp the long pieces to it, and give it some lovin to make it work :)

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Here is a pic of the back section glued and clamped up

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Here it is again with all the trim attached

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Here are the 2 jigs I had to make to router in the mortises for the bed rail clips

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Next a pic where I had to take an 1/8" chisel and cut in some slots on the front rail section to accept the clips that allow the front to slide up and down on the rails

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Next a pic of a door buck I built in school. Use it to hold up doors at work to router in the hinge mortises and what not, but it worked great to hold up the sections so I could sand them :thumb:

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Just a few more pics to add to a new page since I've hit the limit...
 
Here is a pic of Angie helping paint :) Couldn't have done it without her!

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And the completed crib. I'm sorry but because of space issues I didn't get a good pic of the front view with the elliptical shape on the bottom and showing how the front rail slides down :( But when I set it up at their house maybe I will take more and post them!

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...now the story as to how we gave them their big gift :thumb:

As earlier mentioned, they had NO idea this was coming. We went over to Angie's mom's on Christmas Day to exchange gifts amongst each other. Angie and I had to get there early so that we could set the crib up in the spare bedroom and close the door, making sure no one went in there to peek :) Then we made sure that the last gift we gave them was a little photo album of 40 pictures. At first they thought it was an empty photo album they could put pictures of the baby in :thumb: Then they started opening it from the beginning. A couple of photos into it they just had this look on their faces like "what the?" ...and I heard her say "oh, it's Westley... in his workshop...?" They were confused and it was awesome :thumb:

The photo album started out with pictures of the wood just laying around cut into various shapes, then of me cutting stuff, Angie helping sanding stuff, then pictures of stuff really starting to get put together, showing the process of the whole thing being built upto the end with it all painted. About 3/4 of the way through the album they realized what it was and they both started crying. It made Angie and I both cry too. It was a really touching, just awesome moment. They were so surprised and just blown away by the whole thing, it's exactly what I was going for and it was one of the best Christmas memories I'll ever have. After they were done with the album I said "you wanna see it?! 'Cause it's just in the other room" :eek::thumb:

Here are 2 pics, the first one is them looking at the album not realizing what it's all about lol. The second one is after they figured out we built them a crib

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And lastly just a pic of all 4 of us standing by the crib...

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Thanks for looking everyone! And thanks for letting me share with you. Any critiques/comments lemme hear em :) And thanks for everyone's help with everything, you have been a big help and inspiration!
 
A wonderful job and quite a emotional unveiling of your gift. Is your crib convertible to a single bed as the child becomes older? It has that appearance.
 
Great way to present the crib to them Westly. I was feeling the emotion when reading your post:eek:. Great job you and Angie did on the crib :thumb: Something you all will remember and pics for the youngin to see in the future.

Tom
 
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