King Size Mission Style Bed #3: Finished Footboard

Well, it’s been a long time since my last entry in this blog. I earned a degree from the school of hard knocks on this project. It all started when I sprayed the water based poly on right over the stain. I had waited longer than the instructions for the stain said to wait before applying a water based finish.

After the poly dried I noticed blotches all over the place, that just wasn’t acceptable! I set about stripping the finish off of everything. Trying to hury the process I bought a hand held belt sander. For anyone else that doesn’t know, belt sanders are not tools for making fine furniture! The sander would dig in and leave ripples in the wood. So, it was back to the orbital sander for finer control.

After staining everything again I wiped on two coats of 2# cut shellac, something I did on the last bed I made. Hmm, perhaps I should have done what worked the first time! I then sprayed two coats of poly. This time I added some amber TransTint dye to the poly as the WoodWhisperer demonstrated on a recent podcast.

After the second coat I did a light sanding with 400 grit then sprayed on the third and final coat. After a week I came back and used a 0000 steel wool pad to rub in paste furniture wax, another first for me. All I can say is that the wood feels as smooth as a baby’s bottom!. This is a step I will always do from now on.

Next step is to finish waxing the spindles for the headboard before assembling and attaching the steel rails to the side rails of the bed. I’m getting anxious to have it all assembled and finally get to sleep on it.

Anyway, here are some pictures of the footboard:

I was so excited to have it done it’s already in the bedroom waiting for its mate.

An up close shot of some of the flecking. The flash from the camera washed out the color.

This shot shows some of the flecking in the corbel and top rail. It doesn’t do justice to the spindles.

The next two shots show the flecking in the spindles. I spent extra time making sure the best side would be the one on display. I also ensured that they would align so that the light hitting them would add the most depth.

Second shot of the spindles.

Shot of the top of the top rail. This board had some really big flecks I couldn’t resist showcasing it.

-- Owen Johnson - aka IowaWoodcrafter