The Sleigh Bed: Part V

Hi all,

Now we need to attach the crest rails to the bed.  Out of the extra 5" on each crest rail blank,
cut off two 2" pieces and mark them so you know which piece came from which rail.  I marked one the tail and the other the head to keep them straight.

Now go back to the templates used for the legs.  Mark the positions for the dowel rods
and two alignment holes on the template.

and transfer this to the 2" crest rail pieces.

Attach to the end of the crest rail and drill the start of the dowel rod holes.  My Forstner bits are not long enough to finish the holes with the jig installed, so I drilled as far as I could and did the rest trying to be careful to keep the bit straight at all times while I was drilling.

When done the edge of the crest rail looks like this.

Then mount the jig on the leg and drill dowel holes again.

Now dowel rod assembly is always fussy, so be prepared to shave a little here and there
on the parts as you try to fit them together.  But it all works out and you have installed a crest rail!

After both crest rails are installed the bed looks like this.

Next, I need to do the slats.  They will fit into the dados in the crest rail and connector rail as shown
below.  I am using a flexible ruler to get the curve I want.  Then I need to make a template for the slats I'll use for the front of the bed.

I like to practice so I made the template and then cut out some slats out of a 2 x 6 construction grade piece of pine.  The ends of the slat have to be notched to fit into the dadoes.  Doing this for each slat can lead to errors, so I'm going to assemble all the slats first and then cut the notches all at once.  Here is that pine slat.
You can see how the notches are not cut accurately enough.

But even so, you can start to get a feel for how the slat pieces will work out.
Here are 4 pine slats fitted into the front of the bed.

Next, the actual slat work!