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So after joining this website so long ago I have finally completed a project and can share with all of you. I would like to start out by saying that I have learned quite a bit from people's experiences and from a lot of the podcasters out there. Thank you all for what you do.

So this is a crib for our son who was born last June…I know it should have been finished a long time ago…
It is made out of Walnut and this was the first time I ever used it before. Prior to the crib I used maple and oak a lot as they were readily available to me (big box stores with orange colors…I am sure you all know the place). I was able to purchase a jointer and planer and have expanded what my wood options are. Best thing ever if you ask me. Trying to deal with S4S wood from the Depot was always a challenge and now I can deal with squaring things up on my own.

The joinery is all mortise and tenon. The mortises were cut with a drill press and cleaned up by hand with a chisel. A first time for me so some of them required "fixing". There was 80 of them total and that took me a long time to complete. Though the last one took about 10% of the time that the first took :).

I did experience kickback cutting the slats which taught me a very important lesson about the tablesaw…when something seems unsafe, it is unsafe and should be done another way. Built a better push stick and moved on luckily with only a 6" diameter bruise for my foolishness.

The finish was 2 coats of a tung oil finish (Formsby's) and 3 coats of a wipe on poly. Thanks again to all who have posted here this site is awesome. Finally my wife made the teething rail along all the top rails which will keep the occupants from chewing up the wood!!

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Comments

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Nice job on the construction. I hate to think of cutting all those mortises!
 

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607 Posts
Now that is one fine crib Dan. I really like this one. Congratulations on your beautiful family heirloom.
 

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645 Posts
The crib is really nice. Hope it stays in the family for a long time.
 

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55 Posts
Awesome job, looks great.
 

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Dan, a beauty and all those mortises, wow!

I like the clean, simple lines here and think this would go well in a lot of rooms.

You did a great job showing off that walnut.

I have not built a crib as we do not yet have any children, so I'm wondering if you bought the matress first and then designed around that, or are most/all of the crib matresses the same size?
 

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Thanks guys!

-Jonathan most of the crib mattress' out there are about 27.5"x52" but we did buy that first and built around it.

It took about 8 months total to build and not every weekend was in the shop. Not sure how many hours total but it was a lot.
 

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Dan, thanks for the info. I'll "file it away," as I just might need it some day.

I'm sure it was more hours than you care to think about, but I hope you and your wife feel like it was time well spent.
 

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19,753 Posts
Super looking crib wonderful wood too
 

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Great looking crib. Very nicely done. I am working on one right now. Thanks for posting.

God Bless
tom
 

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273 Posts
Beautiful, love the walnut. I'm with Charlie, cutting all the mortises would have driven me to distraction!
 
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