Red Oak Crib
I started this project when we found out we were expecting our first kid. After shopping and not finding anything I liked for the money so I set out to design my own. I wanted a crib that could be broke down and stored when not in use. I bought roughsawn red oak from a local mill an hour from my house.
There were a couple things I tried in this project I have never tried before design wise. After trying them, some of those expiriments will not happen again. I tried to make it all part of the learing process. If you have any coments that I could have done better please let me know. Good or bad, I am almost done, but I will definately incorporate any feedback into my future projects.
Here are the initial concept sketchs:
The basis of the design is four pannels, front, back and 2 side pieces that would break down.
The side pannels insert into the front and back by tennon joints and screws.
The corner pieces were lock mitered and support the cross bars that were also mortised.
Expiriment 1: Instead of mortising a slot for each slat I though it might be easier if the upper and lower cross bars were two pieces each and then I routed a cut out for each slat. I didn't have a good mortise set up. The idea had its bonuses, but I don't think I will do this again. For one I don't think the integrity is there if the bar ever decides to split. Secondly even through I didn't have to clean and fit each slat, It was a little difficult to glue the back piece of the bar on. I hope the pictures explain this.
Routing the top and bottom cross bar with a homemade jig. It will keep consistent and adjustable width, depth, and length of cuts.
All the pre cut pieces
Clamping the slats into the cross bars, another piece would be glued over this 'sandwiching' the slats, again, probably wouldn't have done this in hind-sight
The feet may have been the easiest to build. Their design is a chopped off pyramid with a cove cut and squared bottom. Here is a good place to get the angles right, that may have been the trickiest bit: http://jansson.us/jcompound.html
The feet were made of the four pieces, one shown on my table saw with a poor mans cove jig.
The pieces were glued together, I inserted a cap in the top and squared the bottom on the table saw.
The most detail probably went into running the rail and moulding along the front and back. I tried a few methods and finally settled on the one below for mounting the bend moulding to the crib.
The Rails were steam bent then clamped straigt to the front and back curves, cured for a week then trimmed to fit. I also used small biscuits to help with durability. I can see some kid hanging off of it in the future.
front:
back:
For the Moulding, I wanted single pieces, didn't want to carve and wanted to bend it in hopes of preserving the look of the grain. The problem I was facing was having to bend the moulding laterally.
To star I matched my desired profile (shown right) with two wider pieces that when matched up and trimmed will be identical to my moulding.
These pieces were steam bent and placed in moulds. I made these moulds a bit more extreme than my desired curve to account for spring back and because of the 'S' type turn.
Then they were trimmed to match the profile:
Here are the final pieces before I finish them:
Assembled
And the front being sprayed, I have one more coat and will post finished pictures when done (probably a week out, something about work being in the way)
I started this project when we found out we were expecting our first kid. After shopping and not finding anything I liked for the money so I set out to design my own. I wanted a crib that could be broke down and stored when not in use. I bought roughsawn red oak from a local mill an hour from my house.
There were a couple things I tried in this project I have never tried before design wise. After trying them, some of those expiriments will not happen again. I tried to make it all part of the learing process. If you have any coments that I could have done better please let me know. Good or bad, I am almost done, but I will definately incorporate any feedback into my future projects.
Here are the initial concept sketchs:
The basis of the design is four pannels, front, back and 2 side pieces that would break down.
The side pannels insert into the front and back by tennon joints and screws.
The corner pieces were lock mitered and support the cross bars that were also mortised.
Expiriment 1: Instead of mortising a slot for each slat I though it might be easier if the upper and lower cross bars were two pieces each and then I routed a cut out for each slat. I didn't have a good mortise set up. The idea had its bonuses, but I don't think I will do this again. For one I don't think the integrity is there if the bar ever decides to split. Secondly even through I didn't have to clean and fit each slat, It was a little difficult to glue the back piece of the bar on. I hope the pictures explain this.
Routing the top and bottom cross bar with a homemade jig. It will keep consistent and adjustable width, depth, and length of cuts.
All the pre cut pieces
Clamping the slats into the cross bars, another piece would be glued over this 'sandwiching' the slats, again, probably wouldn't have done this in hind-sight
The feet may have been the easiest to build. Their design is a chopped off pyramid with a cove cut and squared bottom. Here is a good place to get the angles right, that may have been the trickiest bit: http://jansson.us/jcompound.html
The feet were made of the four pieces, one shown on my table saw with a poor mans cove jig.
The pieces were glued together, I inserted a cap in the top and squared the bottom on the table saw.
The most detail probably went into running the rail and moulding along the front and back. I tried a few methods and finally settled on the one below for mounting the bend moulding to the crib.
The Rails were steam bent then clamped straigt to the front and back curves, cured for a week then trimmed to fit. I also used small biscuits to help with durability. I can see some kid hanging off of it in the future.
front:
back:
For the Moulding, I wanted single pieces, didn't want to carve and wanted to bend it in hopes of preserving the look of the grain. The problem I was facing was having to bend the moulding laterally.
To star I matched my desired profile (shown right) with two wider pieces that when matched up and trimmed will be identical to my moulding.
These pieces were steam bent and placed in moulds. I made these moulds a bit more extreme than my desired curve to account for spring back and because of the 'S' type turn.
Then they were trimmed to match the profile:
Here are the final pieces before I finish them:
Assembled
And the front being sprayed, I have one more coat and will post finished pictures when done (probably a week out, something about work being in the way)