Mahogany dresser, night stand, solids hardwood and veneered plywood finished!

allen levine

Member
Messages
12,340
Location
new york city burbs
Selected most of the wood, thought this thread should be over here.
Im going to give it a shot. ITs only wood. Nothing like the smell of mahogany in the morning.
Cut most of the parts and planed/jointed them.
I did not have enough 1 and 1/8th afterall, so the headboard and footboard assemblies will be one inch, the bed side rails will be 1 and 1/8th, and the posts are 2.5 inches as per plans.
Im substituting maple for support parts, O,P, and J.I used walnut for the wenge post feet/bottom.
Im going to use whatever I have available for all the slats, and will lay them out in a pattern if I use different species, they are not seen anyway.All hardwoods, maple, ash, oak, birch.

I wasnt sure if I was going to really post up this build, as Im sure Ill show my true lack of talent, but its only wood and I need to experiment with veneers and other things.

Alot of these parts are big and heavy. I had some difficulties jointing and planing some pieces. Got it done. Rough cut lengths with hand held circular saw since its pretty crowded in the garage right now and dont have that much room to lay things out easily.

Id appreciate it if someone could find the 100th anniversary bed and post up a picture of it, Im not sure exactly how to get it to show, and the parts list.
I labeled all my parts so far, have not done much other than cut to size so far.
I was originally going to make raised panels for the panels, but decided to use mdf and with some instruction and help from here, Im going to glue up the sapele pomele veneer and give it a shot.
 

Attachments

  • bed 001 (Medium) (2).jpg
    bed 001 (Medium) (2).jpg
    67.4 KB · Views: 110
  • bed 006 (Medium).jpg
    bed 006 (Medium).jpg
    49.6 KB · Views: 96
Last edited:
lookun good allen and dont you start with i aint goona post stuff or i willcome over and give yua what for:) we need all the posts we can get here.. as of your slats ash or hickory is the strongest you mentioned.. and the rails are fine at the thickness you got..feel free to ask all you want:) why did you change your mind on the raised panels to a veneer panel? the veneer work answers will have to come from alan or mike or tod.. those that got alot of expeiernce doing it:thumb: looking forward tot he rest of the show:):thumb:
 
Last edited:
trouble with the camera, just cant get anything clear.

cut alot of mortises today, didnt have too much time.
started dry fitting the headboard, thats just a piece of plain ply I used for a test panel for fit.
Its very heavy, having a bit of trouble handling it while putting it all together.
 

Attachments

  • bed 003 (Medium).jpg
    bed 003 (Medium).jpg
    53.5 KB · Views: 82
  • bed 005 (Medium).jpg
    bed 005 (Medium).jpg
    65.5 KB · Views: 73
Looks like a nice bed and good plans and good to see you posting your build.:thumb:

I know i might be late to tell you this but a word of caution from a prior experience i had.

My very first woodworking project back in the day when i was in my twenties and needed a bed for my own place.

I built a design similar to yours, headboard and footboard and slats. Made it from imported Oregon Pine.

At the time i ordered my wood surfaced all sides and cut to general size.

Then put the whole thing together with dowles and screws. Still have the bed, my son uses it and Larry knows it :D

What i did not do was check on the size of mattress to ensure that the matress i bought would fit the bed. It did but so tight that getting something round at the bottom is a mission and everyone hates it for that.

So just do yourself a favor and eyeball the mattress and check on your plans dimensions. Take into account tucking a sheet at least or more like a blanket round the bottom end and ensure theres a little space to be able to lift the mattress and slide em under.:)

Best of luck with the project Allen following along as usual so keep us posted all the way. :thumb:
 
Im going by standard mattress size, queen, and I see the bed allows around 1.5 inches around.
Im following the plans and the plans are for a queen size.

I had to alter, uh....well, I altered certain parts that were called for 6 and 3/4 inches, I went for 6 inches, I changed the tenon size also ofcourse. My jointer is 6 inches, and after that Id have to hand plane the balance and I preferred to not have to hand plane.
ex: the foot board calls for 6 and 3/4 bottom rail and 3 inch top rail.
I made the bottom rail 6 inches, and the top rail 3 and 3/4 inches.
I will make the side rails 6 inches also to match all around.
 
Lookin good Allen.:thumb: Your a woodworking machine. Don't forget to allow for the thickness of your veneer on your test panel.:wave:
 
Lookin good Allen.:thumb: Your a woodworking machine. Don't forget to allow for the thickness of your veneer on your test panel.:wave:


funny you mentioned that. IF you notice the plans, unless I missed something, which ofcourse is possible, it calls for a 1/2 inch groove to be dadoed along the rails and stiles for the 1/2 inch plywood used to glue the veneer on. I found that interesting there was no mention of leaving a bit of space for the thickness of the veneer once added.
I cut the dadoes with the 1/2 inch stack, but left it off just a hair,and ran it through twice, flipped board around , ran it through again,and allowed a tiny bit of space for the veneer on all rails and stiles.
 
While I don't think I have ever follows someone's plans exactly, when I was teaching woodworking classes, my students often did. They learned quickly that there are gotcha's in all plans, even the ones we draw ourselves.

Accept that and play the game of "find the gotcha's" before you cut the wood. It would take an entire chapter to show you how, but I'll write it if you need it. It was part on my ongoing class lectures. Learning how to do this moves you magnitudes closer to drawing your own plans - so you can find your own gotcha's. ;)
 
understood carol.

I figure once I have the footboard and headboard made, I will measure everything out myself to see if I need to tweak the numbers a bit.
I didnt use their recommended bed rail hardware, so IM already changing some numbers.
 
I cut all tenons this morning and dry fit/clamped it all.
Foot board and head board sections.
Have a few worm holes in the wood, and because I cut the easy tenons(the small pieces), saved the long heavy boards for last, I naturally made a bad cut on one of the rails, but I can turn that one around, the other side is straight.
The roller support I was using fell down while I was cutting and the long heavy board slipped out of my grip.
My client is not paying me enough to recut a large board like that, so Ill turn it and noone will see it. If I didnt make any mistakes, and all my cuts were perfect, my son wouldnt be able to afford me.
Besides, Im happy I can still handle this stuff.
Heres a few pictures of the dry fit and the worm holes, and the miscut.(s)
Nothing that cant be tweaked to look fine. I could barely lift the headboard section all clamped up to stand it up, and that really sucks.
The 5th picture just shows how nicely all the straight cuts and tenons sit in place .
I didnt clamp down the top rail so you can see some light above the stiles, but clamped tight it all holds together.I intentionally leave a tiny bit of space with the tenons on the bottom rail so I can tweak it up or down if I need too, then just put a wedge inside the mortise if I have too to keep it all set.My crazy way of allowing myself room for error with all these parts that have to fit like a puzzle.
Again today, I had to deviate from the plans a tiny bit.
I dont own a 45 degree chamfer bit for the router, so I chamfered all the necessary parts on the tablesaw, but the top rail caps needed to be chamfered all around the ends also, so I used a small roundover bit in the router and rounded over the top rail caps instead of chamfering all the sides.
 

Attachments

  • bed 026 (Medium).jpg
    bed 026 (Medium).jpg
    50.8 KB · Views: 50
  • bed 025 (Medium).jpg
    bed 025 (Medium).jpg
    47.3 KB · Views: 49
  • bed 023 (Medium).jpg
    bed 023 (Medium).jpg
    33.8 KB · Views: 53
  • bed 021 (Medium).jpg
    bed 021 (Medium).jpg
    61.5 KB · Views: 53
  • bed 020 (Medium).jpg
    bed 020 (Medium).jpg
    65.7 KB · Views: 57
  • bed 017 (Medium).jpg
    bed 017 (Medium).jpg
    55.5 KB · Views: 50
Last edited:
I finally got the glue, so I glued up a small piece(2 panels) of veneer on mdf and naturally, even though I allowed excess room for the veneeer and panel, it was too tight.
I went back out tonight, set the dado exactly where I had it by using one of the rails, then moved the fence over a smidgeon(a woodworking term?) and ran the rail over the dado again, then flipped the board and ran it through to keep it centered. Worked fine. I ran all the rails and stiles through again at this setting.
The pomele veneeer panel fit great.


I thought I ordered plenty of excess, I was wrong. After gluing up the remaining panels, I only had a few inches of veneer leftover.
My veneering procedure:
Cut the mdf to make 10 panels at once,(I allowed some excess for blade width when I cut them down) I already had 2.
I then took some old 3/4 inch ply, cut it down to same size. 2 pieces so I could sandwich the mdf and veneer between them.
Took a sanding block and sanded one surface of the ply very smooth to the touch, since I wanted a smooth contact surface.
Then took a piece of 1x4 pine, slightly rounded over the end to use to press/smooth out the veneer.
I used Tightbond cold press glue, spread it on one side of the mdf, laid the veneer in place, took the 1x4 piece of pine, and like wallpaper, I started in the middle, and pressed out the veneer towards the edges.
I then put a piece of wax paper over it, placed a plywood panel over it, and flipped it over and repeated the process for the other side. Clamped it all tight.

Thats where Im at tonight. Im hoping to glue up the rails and stiles of the foot and head boards tomorrow, and continue cutting more parts, and headed off to work till next week.

Another change I made in the plans: the poplar rail supports,(mine will be all ash) in the plans are 3.5 inches high. Im going to reduce the rail supports and the center support to 2 inches, since a common mattress runs 10-11 inches in thickness, and the plans mentioned 8 inches. this way more of the headboard would be visible when the mattress is in place.

(in the picture, the veneered panel is double, I didnt want to cut it down till the glue had 24 hours to dry, I just used it to test fit)
Not sure why I left the side stile with the spalting/staining and didnt recut it.
I think the sapele pomele is a pretty sharp looking piece of veneer.

3 hours after clamping-one side came out perfect, the other side I have a few ripples over a 6 inch area.
Not a problem since 6 of the panels are on the headboard and the backs of the panels will be against a wall. I wont try to fix it, it amounts to about 2 of the 10 panels.
 

Attachments

  • bed 029 (Medium).jpg
    bed 029 (Medium).jpg
    51 KB · Views: 52
  • bed 031 (Medium).jpg
    bed 031 (Medium).jpg
    48.3 KB · Views: 52
  • bed 033 (Medium).jpg
    bed 033 (Medium).jpg
    73.1 KB · Views: 39
Last edited:
I hope I'm not to late Allen but make sure you sticker your panels for a day or so to allow them to fully so they don't bow on you. Don't lay them flat on the bench or stack them without something in between.
 
what vaughn said:thumb::thumb: that is gonna dance allen when you get finish on it..what is your final thickness on the outside dado walls where theses panels are going in? reason i am asking is that you need to remeber that the panels are gonna be thinner after sanding and there fore you migh want to hold of on recutting your dados just yet.. and fit the dados to the final sanded panels.
 
Last edited:
Way to go Allen. I just love how you get it done.:thumb:

Just what Vaughn said those panels are going to be terrific. Thanks for posting how you did the veneer.

Why is it we hear veneer and automatically think vacuum pump yet for a project like this your approach is more the suitable.:thumb:

Cant wait to see the finished product. Does the non paying customer know about it or has he seen any progress work?

Man he is going to be delighted.
 
Top