The Baby Bunk: The Epic Conclusion

During this project, I have noticed that this whole undertaking has been a kind of allegory of the soul. When God gives you a mission and you have no clue what to do or where to start, yet because it is God's will, it comes to fruition. At first you don't want to step outside your door; you are paralyzed in not knowing what is to come or what to do. Yet you do it anyway; you step with one foot forward and go, trusting in Divine Providence. As your journey progresses, you probably stumble along the way; you may even stray completely from what you were supposed to be doing. But with "God's will be done", He can take those stray paths and work them into His overall design; inevitably helping you, forming you into the person you are supposed to be (though it may take a little bit longer to get to where you are going). Bottom line, if there is trust in a plan that happens to be God's, as long as you focus on Him, the plan can't help but manifest itself.

For example, I would be working and then all of the sudden I would do something royally stupid which at first thought is deemed irreversible and completely damning. Instead of cursing my ineptitude, I walk away from the project and come back later with fresh eyes. I then realize that "eh, it's not so bad...actually I can probably exploit this!" And just like that the project continues.

We have heard many times that God doesn't call the equipped, rather He equips the called. Well, I feel that this is relevant to me. Granted, I am not saying I am anything special that I have been given some gift of woodworking (a wood-whisperer perhaps?). But rather I just think St. Joseph doesn't want my child to die from my horrible contraptions. Whatever the reason is, I continue with the intent to do my best and not worry about the bumps along the way. 

So regardless of whether it is a preternatural gift of carpentry, Divine assistance, or it is just a fool's dumb luck, it is still unusually gratifying to finish something like this and have it even remotely resemble your original plans. 

So where are we? Oh yes final assembly!

Now, remember in the last entry when I had to change some things because the bed top wasn't wide enough? The bed-top wasn't wide enough to cover the entire width of the leg-base. So to fix that I dropped the back down and that perfectly (oddly enough) filled the space I needed. The problem was I didn't account for the loss of height in the back (about 3/4 inch) when I cut the sides. 

So I ended up with this:

This revelation is of course after I had already drilled the dowel joiner holes in the bottom of the side pieces. I had to cut the sides down and potentially loose the holes (drilling holes with my [not-so perfect] drill guide is a pain in the tukhus). Oh well. 

What I needed now was a table saw....I didn't have one. 

I then decided to ring my good friend Freddie, who having the Eldorado of tools, to see if he could give me a hand. 

We proceeded to shave the required amount off of each side and then he helped me with his handy-dandy dowel-drill-rig-a-jig by drilling nice dowel holes all around. Granted I could have done this myself, but it would have taken a lot more time and perspiration than just having Freddie give me a hand. 

(Freddie is a good man.)

Now back in my shop, I proceed to bond some of this stuff together.

Buyer-beware: Never buy cheap clamps. I bought two gray cheap-o clamps from Menards and one of the clamps' threads completely stripped.

 *shakes fist* 

Best to get the real deal the first time around. 

So I did that with both sides and then I proceeded to throw on the back....and then came the realization that I didn't have nearly enough clamps for the job...so naturally I borrowed a few from Freddie.

(Have I mentioned that Freddie is a good man?)

Wiping up excess glue saves a lot of swearing later (I hate sanding). 

Now that the bed is fully assembled, lets throw it all together!

Before I stained and poly'd it, I decided to give it a test run. I noticed that with my wife on the bed it drove the nose of the bunk downward making the bunk top off level. To remedy this I decided to make some lifts on the end of the rungs so as to tilt the nose back up. 

I cut 4 scrap pieces to size and glued them to each end of the rungs.

I then cut them to shape with my bandsaw:

...sanded them nice and smooth...

...and then stained and poly'd them. 

I then proceeded to stain and poly the rest of the bunk. 

(cue presentation music: start it at 2:18) 

And without further ado, I give you The Baby Bunk!

And here it is (or will be) in its natural habitat: (the bumpers made by my lovely wife!)

The stress test: Well I couldn't find the dog, so we used Phil instead.

View from the underside.

Well there you have it. 

Thank you all for reading! 

The next project will be building blocks. Should be fun.

Pax

NPM

St Joseph pray for us!

The Baby Bunk part DUEX

In the art of woodworking, there is so many examples of perfection and awesome detail that make you believe that only hundreds of hours and decades of experience can render. Most people don't have a first hand account with woodworking so hence don't know that wood can be very forgiving (it also can devour your soul). What may look as if every single stroke of a chisel or cut with a saw was made with absolutely no mistakes is probably to the contrary. No matter how many mistakes one can make on a singular work, you can always either hide it, fix it, or exploit it (or if its the soul devouring kind, you live with it). This becomes more true the simpler the project is, yet becomes more difficult on complex projects. Case in point, I give you the next episode.

When making the bed top, I joined two "8 inch wide" boards together (this is done instead of using just one very wide piece because the wider a single board is the more chance it will have in cupping/warping). I joined them together using dowels again. Now when using dowels you (theoretically) have to drill holes in the exact center in the same spot on the two pieces you wish to join to produce an invisible seam. Since I don't have a drill press, I used my fancy (not really) drill guide to get it exact. I was soon disheartened by the not-so-exact nature of my holes on either board. "Great. Now what? Hide, fix, or exploit?"

HIDE IT! 

Well, after a brief lamentation, I decided to shake my fist at this wretched device of "inexactitude"; shook the sawdust from my feet; and decided to dry fit it anyway. It was rather awful; yet something was telling me to just keep going. "GLUE IT UP SON!" So I did.

Can you see the seam?
No you can't! Be quiet!!

Once it was fully cured, I sanded the up-side within an inch of its life! To my giddy appeasement it was given a mighty fine invisible seam (just don't look at the other side too closely!). Bed top done!

The next step was to cut the back and this required a little ingenuity. I wanted a curved top edge for it....Ok, piece of cake. To make circles everyone knows all you need is a fixed point with a string attached then proceed to scrawl circles to your hearts content. The problem was my radius (length of string) utilized my entire work space to get the degree of circle I needed. With a couple of tries, I got what I was looking for.

The bed top and the back:  (the back was cut out of a 12 inch board with my jig saw. [Btw, all the wood I am using is Pine of varying degrees of quality])

Now if you have been following along and if you have been looking over my drawing with a fine toothed comb, you would have noticed a fatal flaw. In the drawing, the bunk is supposed to be about 16 inches wide. The boards that I bought for the bed-top were sold to me as 8 inch boards.

Yet in the realm of the lumber industry the actual measurements of lumber has actually been shrinking since the 19th century. Back then when you purchased an 8 inch Pine board you were getting an 8 inch pine board. Yet the same board being sold in today's lumber yards as "8 inches" is in actuality 71/4 inches. "Great. Now what? Hide, fix, or exploit?"

Exploit it!

So with this error in mind I had to make up about 3/4 of an inch (if you are trying to do the math, don't bother. Not sure what happened, all I know is that I had 3/4 of an inch to make up) and the way to do that was to drop the 3/4 inch thick back board down to fill the space instead of setting it on top of the bed top.

("Crisis averted!! Right?" Well be sure to remember this last minute change when we get to part three of this series.)

The next adventure involved making the sides -

The sides came together pretty simply, once I figured out the curve I wanted. (French curves are fun...)

featherin' it up

I then shaped it out with my trusty band saw (craigslist).

Then I sanded them down to a sleek figure. Not bad at all.

(I don't know why, but when things go according to plan I get really excited.)

Now drunk with power from accomplishment, I decided to do something rather daring!

The Oak gives a redder accent to the project.

During the process of making the Oak Bookcase, I was left with 6 long strips-scraps of oak cut from the individual shelves. "I could use the strips as accents to the sides and the back!"  I thought to myself.

So began my adventures in Steaming Wood!



Even though the strips were pretty pliable by themselves, the degree in which I planned to bend them needed a technique called steaming. It is the idea that if you use moisture and heat, you can bend wood into almost any shape you want without breaking it!

Professionals would use what are called steam boxes and they had many variations but generally they looked like this: a wood box with openings on both ends and some source of steam; in this case a tea kettle.

I didn't have one of these nor did I want to make one at the moment. So I improvised!

Years ago, I saw my dad use a trick without a steam box. He used just a sponge, a hairdryer, and an adjustable jig made out of a piece of plywood and nails.

I tried the same thing: I traced the shape of the side to the piece of wood that made my jig...

Now, just don't snap.

...and then I placed the nails on the line and tucked the piece of wood in. I used the hairdryer and a spray bottle to try and get the moisture and the heat needed to make the bend.

...dooooon't snap

So far so good...

no snappy no snappy no snappy no snappy no snappy...

Not bad! Just a little more!....

#@!&*%$!!!

...annnndd......nope.

"Great. Now what? Hide, fix, or exploit?"

FIX IT!

Not enough heat me thinks.

So I ended up having an idea completely out of left field.


If all I needed was heat and moisture why not use...I don't know...

....a nesco? Strange I know. But hey it's the same principle!



I worked the wood slowly: 5 min. in the hot water, then work it slowly in the jig a few inches at a time with 20 min to rest. I had to do it this way because I could only heat 4-5 inches of the piece at a time. It was slow going.

Success! I then duplicated my results(this time just using a cast-iron pan with hot water)....

Now I have two!

Now the wood is relatively in the shape that I want, I then make a clamping jig so my clamps have a square surface to clamp on to. The difficult part was making sure there was no gaps all the way around the bend.

I little trouble with the jig, but it seemed to work out all right.

Once both of them were glued up, I sanded them down and now they  look like this:

Here is a closer look:

Since those worked out so nicely, I continued with the back which didn't require steaming because it wasn't a sharp bend.

Bad news: running out of clamps is not fun.
Good news: I found a new use for rope!

We are nearing the end of it now. Stay with me for the finished product and a possible stress test using the neighborhood dog.

Thanks for reading!

Werd out.

Neil

The Baby Bunk part 1

The incredible news of having your first child brings with it not only the dual-emotion of simultaneous joy/fear (HOLY CRAP! WE HAVIN' A BABY!....holy crap...we are having a baby?), but also the probing questions of what will it like to eat, sleep in, and play with? Is it ok to save money on diapers by having the child roam free in the yard as nature intended? Or is it common practice to lay newspaper on the bare floor as an adequate sleeping arrangement? Luckily for me, my wife is more than nominally versed in such things; good thing too, otherwise social services would be breathing heavily down my neck (and for what?! Setting the kid on a running engine block so he/she can watch daddy work on the car would be apparently frowned upon!). So with the advent of our first born's birth on the not-so-distant horizon, I focused my anticipatory energies into the one of the more valid questions: How/where will this kid sleep?

In many parts of the world (both 1st and 3rd world countries) the newborn child, up until 6 months or so, would sleep with mother and father in the same bed. This arrangement gives the benefit of easy access of baby to mother and allows the mother to stay in bed while nursing. Also it reduces stress disorders and the possibility of SIDS. Whilst this be our preferred arrangement, our bed doesn't necessarily accommodate: our bed doesn't have a lot of room being just a queen and we have a lot of poofy blankets with a squishy mattress pad (MARSHMALLOW!) - such things can be a suffocation hazard. So we researched the next best thing: a "co-sleeper Baby Bunk."

This option was the best we could see. It provided the same benefits of co-sleeping as far as easy access goes yet it is at the same time a bit safer for our situation. "Great! How much is it?!" you may ask. This Baby-Bunk co-sleeper can be yours for the low price of $395.95.

Yeah no. I don't love the kid that much (I'M KIDDING!!). All joking aside, (play Epic Battle Music) as a token of my love for this child and for the rest of my posterity, I therefore decided to graduate myself from simple spice racks and bookshelves, to a multivariate, somewhat more complex sleeping platform that would safely support the fruit of my loins for nights on end! It will be sturdy and compliant to my plans! It will never falter nor fail to keep it's form, nor will it creak or squeak with a mere jostle of bed or bunk. Movement of parent nor babe will ever compromise it's silent subtlety. "Impossible!" you say?! Nay I say! It can and will be done! It is my fatherly responsibility, NEIN, duty (!!) to provide a cozy layer for my brood from my blood, sweat, and tears!

(end Epic Battle Music)

LET'S DO THIS THING!

Step One: Drafting plans

My drawing ability is comparable to a caffeine-ridden, finger-painting child.
So I decided to acquire some drawing aids/drafting tools to help me with some of the basics: such as a T-square, different angled triangles, french curves (ooh la la!), and a fancy mechanical pencil. A drafting tablet w/easeled table would have been too expensive, so I used a little TV-tray and set my T-square against that - it was adequate.

The Results

(...in all it's drafted majesty...)

My design for the Baby-Bunk meandered from the original photos because of the height of our mattress. I didn't want Tess to strain her back picking-up and replacing baby numerous times during the night, so I raised it a good 12 inches (I think). Everything else was of the same likeness (for now).

(Nota Bene...no matter what I attempt to draw or caligracate, my inability to think ahead by keeping it all within the confines of the drawing space is unparalleled.)

Step Two: Cutting the legs and leg-supports.

Fairly uneventful process....well...I may have miscalculated the length of the front "legs" which ended up having two sets of legs cut: one set I would actually use for the bunk and the other for kindling.
For the leg-supports, I had to add an extra 1/2 inch or so at each end to allot for a joining technique called Mortise and Tenon.

Step Three: Mortise and Tenon

I used my cordless drill with a "Drill-Guide" (which is a fancy [not-really] guide that plants the drill at a perfect [not really] perpendicular position so I can drill straight...[not really]) and using a chisel to clean out the rest so I have a nice clean rectangular hole (mortise) in the sides of the legs. Here is a video of the procedure (nice shorts buddy). Then I used the bandsaw to cut the Tenons to shape.

(I used Carpenters Glue to bond.)




Here is what it looks like now. (I apologize for not having pictures of a step by step procedure; the base was completed before this Blog was established. Though, I assure you that the rest of the steps are well documented.)






I later added the rungs that go underneath the mattress: I used the bandsaw to cut into the leg-supports, sanded the openings, and just dropped the rungs in. Instead of gluing them in, I decided to pilot some holes and use screws to secure them. Seeing how the unit is pretty tall, I didn't want a fixed  cumbersome (width-wise) piece of furniture to be difficult moving in and out of doorways.







I also sanded the rungs down more than usual so that no splinter would catch the fabric of the mattress.






Well there you have it! The Baby-Bunk base is basically b..ahh...finished! And to think, I was able to make it fairly square and everything (with my sad lack of tools, this is an accomplishment!)!

And by no means do I, myself, take all of the credit for the success of this part of the project (nor any part of the project for that matter). With consistent prayers to St. Joseph and The Big Carpenter Himself, this thing miraculously came together with minimum hiccups (rather hiccups that couldn't be corrected/exploited).

Stay tuned for part 2 of the Baby-Bunk! Next will be the body of the bed (and there was much rejoicing...[yay])!!

Thanks for reading!

PAX

p.s. St. Joseph, pray for us!

The Oak Bookcase

Craigslist is a beautiful thing. Why? Because it is a GOLD MINE! I will never (if I can manage it) buy retail ever again. Since the adventure with the spice rack of destiny, my "workshop" has expanded a bit (and by workshop I mean a meager excuse for a basement), with Craigslist as a God-send. The new additions have been of pretty decent quality; although the compound miter saw wasn't/isn't necessarily square...

Cutting boards with a not-so square saw and using an old compound square that turned out to be crap also, was like using your parrot to tune a backward-strung guitar. ..uuuhh well ok maybe it's not like that at all, but it was still maddening. So henceforth ensued the battle to find which one of my tools was crap. To my embarrassment I figured out that the problem was with both tools...and equally embarrassing was the length of time it took me to come to that conclusion.

So the combo square is scrap but the saw...I just need to square up...which I am too lazy to do....right now.

Even with my new saw and some other misc. things, it wouldn't get me even close to what I needed to use in order to build my second (ever!) project: the Oak Bookcase.

Due to our education (or the lack thereof) Tess and I have accumulated quite a few books (some of which we have actually read!).  The shear mass of these volumes put into flimsy particle board cases that bowed and teetered precariously didn't make us feel all that warm and fuzzy. Therefore the wife commissioned me to build a bookcase out of solid wood. I decided to make it 6ft high, 2 3/4ft. wide, and 12in. deep. Yet seeing how I have never made anything to this scale before, I decided to Google "How to build a bookcase." There I found a Popular Mechanics page that gives you a step by step procedure. (Remember once upon a time, that is lost in legend, where if people wanted to know something, they would have to actually ask another breathing human being....?  ...yeah neither do I).

As it is the wonders of the inter-webs never cease and I got what I needed. So I figured out the dimensions, calculated the the length of wood and how much I needed; and decided on the kind of wood - "It shall be Oak!" I announced. Red Oak to be precise...  *knock* *knock*   .....no one told me that Oak was so darned expensive. We spent more money than I care to say. And I just bought the boards! The case wasn't even built yet! So if I screw up....I'm sleeping in the bathtub (which I hear isn't all that bad; but I wasn't going to take that chance). Once I got everything home, the revelation of not being able to really cut these things dawned on me. My saw can only cut 6 in. wide boards. I bought 12 in. boards. Dead in the water already. I decided to ask for some help.

In the parish that Tess and I go to there is a very nice gentleman that said he could help me cut what I needed and then I could handle the rest (sweet). I get to his house and his out-building that contains his shop is just as big as his house. I get inside and (cue excited frolicking music) he has EVERYTHING!: A bandsaw, a Jet Table saw (big), a scroll saw, a compound miter saw with freakin' lasers!, a joiner, a dust collection system, a router table...you name it (clamps, clamps and more clamps!! I was a kid in a candy store! After I got a hold of myself, we got down to business. Once we had everything cut and ready to go, I brought it all home and went at it like Oprah on a baked ham.

I encountered a few hiccups here and there but nothing that affected it too much. Overall, it took about 10 hours (I think) to complete.

Have a look:

The shelves are held in a fixed position by using a tenon and mortise technique called a dado. It is a cutting of the thickness of the shelf into the sides. this means a lot more strength than what I originally had in mind. The strips of wood called fascia (ooooh) on the side cover up the dados and the top and bottom are capped with a single piece where I routed the edge to make it look fancy.

I stained it with a red oak stain to match the rest of the furniture and then used a Wipe-on Poly (which is an amazing product) to give it a subtle satin sheen.

Dado hid by fascia board = awesome.

Header board with kick-a** routed edge. Yeah.

Kick board with same (but different) kick-a** routed edge. Uhuh.

So here it is in all its book-casing splendor. Notice its obvious properties of a non-precarious, un-flimsy, and teeterishless nature! And it will be as is for ages to come!

There you have it! Thank you for reading about my adventures in making this Bookcase. Please join me next time with the multi-parter making of .....................the Baby Bunk.

word out.