The Sleigh Bed: Part II

Hi all,

The next step in the sleigh bed is making the rails that connect the front and back of the bed.
The front and back legs and the rails need to have a bed rail connector put it so we can take the bed
apart when we want to.  To do this, I have to cut shallow mortises into these pieces and insert
the connectors.  So my chisels have to be sharp.  I use a simple sharpening station to do this.
I have sandpaper grits from coarse to very fine -- 80 grit to 800 grit -- glued to stone or glass plates.
I use a tool to set the angle of my chisel and then I sharpen it by starting at the coarse and moving toward
the fine.  Once that is done, you add a microbevel.  On the Veritas tool I have it is simple to do that.
I just rotate a setting on the tool and the angle changes slightly.  Then I resharpen using only fine grits
until the microbevel is established.

The picture shows my sharpening setup and the Veritas tool.  Here is a closeup of the Veritas tool set up to use.  You roll the tool up and down on the various grits to sharpen.

Next, I did a practice mortise on some ash stock I had.  The bed rail connectors will look like this
when done.

and I have to make sure the fit is tight so it looks good.  When connected it should look snug.

The problem is the rails are 80 inches long and the legs are big too.  So what is straightforward to do
on a small piece is harder because of the physical size.  I started by making a template out of wood.
Then I could lay it on the edge of each rail, layout where to cut the shallow mortise and then do it.
I removed most of the shallow mortise using a small router with a 1/8" spiral cutting bit.  Then I fine tuned
the fit with chisels.  It is pretty slow and painstaking work but I like it as it is like meditation.  Here is the setup along with the template on the table next to it.

The mortises on cut on the ends so the layout looks like this.

After installation they look like this.  The rails have the connectors with the hooks that slide into
the other connector on the legs.

Then I did the same thing on the legs. Again, the layout is the key thing as it has to be precise.
When done I assembled to see how it looked.

Here is the proud papa with this step!

and finally, a dry run setup on the floor of the garage.

Next, I cut the mortise and tenon joints that are used to connect the cross rails
to the legs.