The Sleigh Bed: Part I

Hi all,

As the work on the second nightstand wound down, I started the sleigh bed for my daughter Qaitlin.  The sleigh bed design is from American Woodworker February 1998 in the article "Sleigh Bed" by Randy Sorenson.
Here is a snapshot from the magazine article.

I am changing the design a bit.  I liked the idea that I can create the curved front and back boards using bandsawn slats, but I didn't want to have the open look with spacers between slats as seen in the picture.  The queen size bed is about 60 inches across and each slat is about 2" wide.  So I'm going to cut out about 60 slats and assemble them into a complete piece.  It should be fun as there are some very interesting challenges here!
Most of the bed is made out of 2" thick ash, so first I had to buy it in Atlanta.  The ash comes in random widths and lengths as 8/4 stock so I had to know
how each piece in the bed would be cut and figure out in the store which pieces of ash stock to buy.  Then I had to figure out cut lines so the guy at the store could cut the long pieces so I could get them in the van.  Here is Pauli standing next to the ash before the cuts!

Once I had it home, it was laid out in the garage while I finished the nightstands.

Then I had to take the plans in the magazine article, transfer them to paper and use them to make templates for the legs which are quite curved.  First, I went through all my stock and remeasured all the parts and wrote on each blank what I would use it for.  Then I took the stock for the curved legs and laid it out on the table saw.

Here is a snapshot of the plans for the legs.  I measured out a 1" by 1" square grid on plywood scrap and carefully transferred from the drawing to my stock.

Here is what my first draft of the templates looked like after layout and transfer.

Next I tried to layout the slats as best I could.

I tried to see how the slat would fit within each leg as some of my slats will rest right against each of the four legs.  Then I cut out my templates on the band saw.  You can see them laying on top of the blanks which by now have been carefully squared on my table saw.

After Pauli and I had looked at my first draft of the templates, we decided they didn't have enough of a curve.  I found it hard to translate the tiny magazine blueprint to the plywood and my mistakes showed up here.  The templates were not curved enough.  So I tried again and even used my Grandfather's old compass to help me layout the slats.  The second draft looked much better and I cut it out of thinner plywood.  Here the templates are laying next to the legs I cut out on the bandsaw.  By the way, cutting out 2" stock that is 48" long on a bandsaw is intense!

The curves here are much better.  Now just for a quick peek at what the sleigh bed will look like, here are the four legs in rough position held up by clamps.

In the next post, I'll go over making the side rails and showing how they are attached to the legs with bed rail fasteners.

Second Nightstand

Hi all,

This is about woodworking again: the second nightstand.  I start with the same basic carcase: one drawer and a roomy storage area which will have doors.  This time the doors will have a sea foam/ sand motif.

Now, for all of these projects, I get a lot of help from various issues of Fine Woodworking.  Fine Woodworking from June 2003 had an article "Engineering a Chest of Drawers" by Will Neptune which showed me how to set up a basic carcase.  Then in Fine Woodworking Decemmber 2008 there was a great article "The Right Drawer for Your Project" by Matthew Teague
which showed me how to design and build various kinds of drawers and gave good advice on how to fit them into the drawer opening so you hear a slight "whoosh" when you close the drawer and the air is pushed out.
This post is about the carcase but looking a bit ahead, I used American Woodworker from February 1998's article "Sleigh Bed" by Randy Sorenson for my sleigh bed design.  But that is for another post.

The Fine Woodworking issue December 2008 also had an article "how did they do it: Man or Machine" by Annissa Kapsales which profiled the work of Duncan Gowdy in which he build a side cabinet whose doors held a sea foam/ sand relief carving design.  It was a emotionally moving piece as he used a photo of the beach where he had cast his mentor's ashes out into the surf as the model.

Note he has 4 doors and I only want 2 so I clearly need to modify the design a bit.  He also uses recessed hinges and small hidden drawer pulls while I want to use those nice adjustable hinges with nautilus pulls.  He carved and scooped out the sea foam parts after bleaching the wood.  He then stained the sand parts with a bit of dark umber so that he achieves a kind of silhouette effect.  Anyway, I was so impressed with this wonderful piece of art, I wanted to use the idea on the second nightstand.

First, I built all of the nightstand; the drawer and the doors.  Installed the top with purpleheart edging and fitted the doors.  Then I popped off the doors so I could do the drawing.  I freehand drew the design on my two doors on paper which looked like this vertically on the doors.

On my table saw, it looked like this.

I then woodburned through the paper and then since it was faint still, I woodburned it again.

Then I shaded the sand areas with a pencil and used my router to route around all the dark areas with an 1/8" bit.  After that I used a gouge to scoop out along the routed edges to create a more rounded look.  So along each dark area edge, the profile looks like

dark edge -- routed channel -- rounded and scooped out area -- interior of foam.

Also, Pauli and I decided we wanted a large sand area on the lower right so I adjusted the routed areas and so forth to give a solid lower right hand corner.

At this point, Pauli applied Watco and then after three days, the painting began.  The sea foam was applied as a white paint wash and the sand color used  a yellow ochre one.   Here is the first draft.

Then after looking at it awhile, we decided to add a blue wash to everything.  I also added a bit of dark umber to the sand again.
Here is the second draft setup on my drafting table in the bunny mansion -- the art studio I build years ago in the back yard.

Here is the nightstand with the doors back on in a close up.

Here is it stepping back a bit.  Now the varnish is not on yet, but it is getting close to the final product.

Then we decided to add a blue wash to the drawer.  So here are two final images before we varnish.  This is a front on view.

And this is one showing the top.

Now all we have to do is varnish and bring it in the house!
That's all for now.

First Nightstand

Hi all,

Back to woodworking!  I now have images from my cell phone on my laptop.
I don't know why I was so slow in getting them transferred, but since I only
use Linux, I am always nervous that a device is not recognized.  But it was fine and the 8 Gb disk on the phone showed up as a drive right away.
So now I can show pictures.  I'll start with the the nightstands.

First I made two carcases -- this is the basic structure of the thing.
It has a drawer at the top and a roomy space for storage at the bottom.
The doors and drawer are not made yet and the nice top is not sized and fitted either.

The raw top is made out of ash that is glued together
using biscuits.  I had never used biscuits for joinery before so that was fun too.  This particular lumber was resawed from 2 inch thick ash stock
and so the glued up top had to be smoothed a fair bit using a long plane and
a belt sander.  Nice way to meditate!  I used the same technique for the doors too.

The above picture shows the finished nightstand along with the 2 inch thick ash boards I'm using to build my daughter's sleigh bed.  I had a great time picking the ash out in Atlanta.  The finished top is edged in purple heart
and you can see the doors have been installed.  I used these really nice
hinges that once installed let you adjust the door fit three ways so you can
get it perfect.  Then you can remove the doors by pulling on a lever
and take them out if you want.  I did want to do this as I was not done.
I wanted to make a picture on the door involving a giant squid, me and a kelp forest.

I made a drawing of what I wanted and then cut it out with
an xacto knife and moved the pieces around with tape until I liked the placement.  I did all of this on top of my table saw.

Here is a detail of the squid cutout I used.

Once I was happy with the placement, I woodburned through the paper to make the outline of the drawings on the doors.  This outline was faint so I
had to go over it a few times to get it dark enough.  You can see my Colwood
wood burner on top of my table saw.  That is a very nice piece of equipment!
Here is the finished woodburning.

You'll notice I had the drawing go up over the board between the doors and
the drawer and then continue into the drawer.
Then Pauli -- my wife -- sealed the entire nightstand with Watco natural
finish and after a 3 day wait, I painted in the image.

Then I needed to even out the wood variations so I added a blue

wash to everything.  Then three coats of varnish and it is done.
The only thing missing now is the drawer knob which Lowes still has on order.  It is a starfish.  The door pulls are nautiluses.

And here it is in the house!  Next, I'll talk about the second nightstand
which has a seafoam/ sand picture.

Woodworking

Hi all,

Today I'm going to talk about my woodworking projects.
About two years ago, I started to make two nightstands for our bedroom.
Many years ago I made a poster bed for us and since the top of the mattress
is about 30 inches high, ready made nightstands at that height are not so easy to find.  But even if I could find them, what is the fun in that?
So I started to think about building my own.  Some years back, I built
a nice nightstand for my sister and I thought I would do something like that
for us too.  I built a prototype right away to get it straight in my head.
I wanted the nightstands to have a drawer at the top with a nice
space for storage under the drawer.  The doors would be flush with
the cabinet face and I wanted to do some sort of art work on the door fronts.
The prototype had a abstract winter tree design which was cut using a router with an 1/8 inch bit in set in about 1/8 inch.  Then the routed part was
stained a bit darker.  It turned out nice.  So I started the other two.

But life got busy and I was delayed almost 18 months.  I just started
them this October and I finished the first nightstand
which is made of ash and has a woodburning/ painting of a giant squid
being watched by a scuba diver (me) with a kelp forest off to the right.
It is in the house now.  The second one will have a sea foam/ sand scene
on the doors which is a relief carving/ woodburning.  It is almost
ready to tint with color and then my wife can do the varnish coats.
My wife usually does the finishing while I tackle the construction.
The two nightstands will be on either side of the poster bed I built
years ago. I think its looks kind of cool.

I also started the sleigh bed for my daughter Qait.  It is also out of ash.
I am using a design from a woodworking magazine which I am modifying
for my purposes.  I made the patterns today for the front and back legs which are nicely curved.  It took all day to get the patterns right.
Next I'll cut out the legs.  This is lots of fun for me.

I am also thinking about computer code too of course while
I work on the wood stuff.  I read a lot about some new stuff
I want to do for about 1 1/2 months, practiced and then it was time
to do something else while the code stuff gestated.
That should become active again in late December.

I am also working on Volume 3 of my massive notes on how to build
cognitive models -- a few of my students read the notes but that is it.
It is kind of like a wood working project.  I do it for me and no one
else really knows about it!

As soon as I figure out how to get the pictures off my cell phone into
my laptop, I'll add pictures of the wood working I am doing.