Sporadic Woodworker

The bed needed some sort of support for the mattress, and I decided to use 18 pine slats to do the job.  I used a 1/2” roundover bit on the router to soften the edges, and sanded them smooth.  I laid them out on the bed, and attached them to each other in 2 sections with strips of leftover oak.  All that was left was to flip them over, and they’ll support the mattress.  I’ll probably use a couple of screws to secure the slat section to the bed once it’s in the room.

Rough pine slats

Smooth slat sections on the bed.

I finally got back to working on this bed over the Labor Day weekend.  Next on the list was to assemble the rails.  I had already cut the rails to length, planed them to 1” thickness, and run a dado to accept the support brace.  I cut the support to length, drilled some pocket holes and glued them into place.

Pocket screw to help tighten into place 

Completed rails

After a bit of research on bed rail brackets, I decided to give these these brackets from Rockler a try, and have been happy with how it turned out.  They don’t come with the screws, but are easy to use, and do the job well.  I marked the locations to pre-drill, and screwed them onto the rails first.  After measuring twice to make sure of the location, I attached the second part of the set to the headboard and footboard.

Punch location for pre-drill, so the bit doesn’t jump

Bracket attached to the rail

Rails attached to the headboard and footboard

Joined bracket

My 3 year old son needs to get out of his crib, and into a bed.  It’s been awhile since I’ve been able to get into the shop and build something for the home.  I decided to draw up some plans, and make him a bed made from Oak to match the rest of his bedroom.  After a Friday afternoon full of meetings for work, I rushed to the local hardwood store to buy some wood.  I bought some 5/4” and 3/4” stock, along with a single sheet of oak plywood.  The wood was rough, and needed some love from the joiner and planer. 

On day one, it was all about cutting the wood to the dimensions I needed.  I cut the plywood down to the 2 pieces that I needed, cut the stock down to the lengths I needed, joined the edges, and cut to proper width.  On day two, I planed the 5/4” down to 1”, and some of the 3/4” down to 5/8”.

Cutting the panels for the headboard and footboard.

Stock cut to width and length

I ended up getting plenty of help on the first day.  My two older boys were very excited about being out in the shop after months and months of nothing.  They put on their goggles, and went to work measuring and hammering random pieces of wood together.  They even had fun sweeping up the massive amounts of sawdust that were left from planing the wood.

Some time later, I was able to complete the bedposts.  I joined 4 pieces at 45degree angles in order to have the grain be consistent on all sides of the post.  Once they were glued up, I joined two sides, and then sent it thru the planer a few times to get it down to the dimensions I wanted.

I ran the posts thru the Dado on the table saw to accept the plywood panels for the headboard and footboard at a 1/4” depth.  After a lot of sanding and a bit of routing, I glued up the pieces to complete the headboard and footboard.   

And, that’s where the headboard and footboard still sit, several weeks later.  Between work, the kids swim team, school starting, and all the summer time activities, my 3 year old might not get his bed until he’s 12.  I exaggerate, only thing left is to cut the rails to length, attach them, sand and stain.  Hopefully more updates to come.

Welcome to my new woodworking blog.  I hope to keep this up with projects that I’ve been working on in the woodshop.  There may be some occasional pictures of my 3 boys, a possible posting about NASCAR, or maybe some rants about software development.  I’ll try to keep those to a minimum.