Thank you to those that followed this build.

Well, that pretty much doesn’t for the crib. I had a lot of fun (and frustration) on this project and am looking forward to the next. There was a lot of lessons learned in this one that is for sure. This was, after all, my first piece of furniture since I was 11 years old. And much more challenging than that one was.

I definitely learned that a good plan is only good if you stick with it. Once you start changing things, you ought to stop and make a new plan. It is too easy to forget to account for all the changes later in the game.

My wife and I also learned from a lot of finishing mistakes. Next time I am not going to spend so much time sanding up front. I think I’ll wait until we are ready to put it together. We spent a lot of time sanding things that just had to be sanded again later.

If you look closely, you can find some flaws, but my wife is happy with it. And as you know, that is really the only vote that counts.

This project also provided me with the opportunity to try new things: Inlay, mortise and tenon joints, detailed design in Sketchup, and best of all a chance to justify the tool purchases. Ha Ha

Thank you to all that provided encouragement and advice along the way.

What’s next???? Work on the shop some more and get it to where I don’t have to trip over cords and hoses as much.

The lumber is all from my wife’s uncle. Him and his father milled it 20 plus years ago. We helped him haul a bunch of good quality lumber out of a place he rented to his farm. After that was finished, he said we could have what ever we wanted out of what was left. Anything we didn’t take was going to the burn pile.

Do you think my crib would make it under the “junk” classification? The lumber should, but the hardware I did buy new for the crib.

The Inlay – my biggest fear. It wasn’t too bad and was completely horrible all at the same time. I “cheated” on my inlay. I was planning on using Mark’s method and do a lot of the cutting by hand. However, in the interest of time and for the opportunity to try a new tool, I used a router for most of it. I did get out the chisels for some though.

I bought an inlay bit and bushing for the router awhile back and this seemed a great opportunity to try it out. Maybe I’ll write a review on it later, but it seemed to work pretty decent for what I needed. The inlay bit is not meant to “hog” out material though. I used it to cut the outline, and then used a combination of chisels and a 1/2” router bit to “hog” out the remaining material. My letters are about 4.25” tall.

My wife just loves it, me I think it will work at best. I am not very happy with the way the letters turned out, but I have no one to blame but myself. Hurry up = poorer quality every time. The problem was not with the technique or the tools, it was in the design. The first attempt was with a template made from “Word” printed letters. That didn’t account for the thickness of the bearing, so the letters were really skinny. Then I decided to draw the letters by hand, sitting in the shop at midnight with a ruler and a circle template. Those are the ones we ended up using, but I would reshape them a bit if I was going to do it again.

The router inlay kit does produce a nice tight fit.

For my template, I used a piece of laminate flooring. It is hard, stable, and flat. Worked great. I would recommend it to anyone. Best of all, it is slick. We used a combination of double sided tape and clamps to hold it in place. I used the back up since it was smoother.

It was so hot that I did a lot of the work outside under the shade tree.

While Dad and I were “playing” with the letters and a few odds and ends that needed finishing. My wife and Grandma were putting water based polyurethane on the walnut pieces of the crib. My wife had already finished the sycamore slats. We decided to try and finish all the pieces prior to assembly and then do one final coat after it is all together. Hopefully this works.

With threaded inserts in legs.

Supervising. Yeah right, do you think I’d try tell my Grandma how to finish something. Heck no. She has finished more wood than I have ever seen probably. It was so much fun having her there. She would do something and say “Now this is how Ken (Grandpa) would have me do it.” Her and Grandpa are the reason I am trying to get back into woodworking. Still brings a tear to my eye when I think about the time I spent in his garage building stuff. Wish he could be here to help us with this one.

Then I decided to install the hardware as suggested and put the pins in the legs and the slides in the front gate. To do this, the front gate would have to be 1 1/4” thick. My is only 3/4”. So, I made two new end pieces and made them 1 1/4” thick.

See my new project post to see the “new” tool I made to help with the router. http://lumberjocks.com/projects/8944

I got the pieces cut and all the hardware routed in and threaded inserts installed in the two new front legs.

I even got my wife to help out with the power tools. She had a blast. She’s a “real” woodworker know she said. She got to use the power tools.

Next up, this weekend where we will attempt to finish the crib yet again.

I have most of the crib finished and hope to complete it this weekend. I have put off what i consider the most challenging part until then end. Not that i am afraid of a challenge, just would hate to mess up this piece.

On the back (longest side opposite of the sliding gate) I have a piece of walnut. It starts out at the legs at 4” high and arches up in the middle to around 9” I think. I would like to inlay our name into this piece. I plan on using sycamore to match the slats.

My question is, how thick should i make the inlay? I plan on using a combination of router and hand tools to cut out the walnut and sycamore. How deep into the walnut should I cut?

Thank you,

I must say this has been a learning experience. Unfortunately I had to make a mistake to learn from it. From now on I will never attempt a project without having the hardware ahead of time. Not a big deal sometimes, but on a crib, it turned out to be a big deal.

I designed my crib myself, and halfway through building it, decided to change hardware types. Of course, the legs were already cut for the original idea. Last night I started planning down some more Walnut to make two new legs. I will also need to make a couple new pieces for the front “gate” and cut all of the sides down by about 1/2”. My wife and I thought we would be putting on the Poly this week. Silly us. Back to the drawing board.

What I learned:

1) don’t get impatient, it will only cost you more time in the end
2) take the time to finish the drawings first and if you want to change something, change it in the drawings before the wood
3) get the hardware ahead of time so you will have the exact measurements and mounting requirements
4) even when you screw it all up and feel like throwing it against the wall, remember, it is still better than a day at work

Question: I am using cross dowels from Rockler to bolt the back to the legs. http://www.rockler.com/product.cfm?page=367 We want to be able to break it down.
The legs are 1 3/4” thick and the bolt will go through them and into the back. My question is how long of bolt should I use? Basically how far in from the edge should the cross dowel nut sit?

Thanks,

We have everything cut and dry fitted. All sanded and ready to be put together. I think we are going to get as much of the finishing done prior to assembly as possible. Anyone have any suggestions on that?

Finishing will consist of a few coats of water based poly and then some paste wax. Sound good?

Frame dry fit.

Slat installation.

The Sycamore slats are cut to size, the rest is just close. Waiting for final dimensioning to give the wood some time to move if it is going to.

Here we are preparing it.

Yeah, I know, forgot my safety glasses. I’ve been trying to do better at this now that I have some prescription safety glasses.

Here is the stack as it sits now.

But, I chose to do things the hard way and design my own crib. I did use Randy’s plans for the critical dimensions, but other than that, it is pretty much my own design.

I used SketchUp for the design. I think this crib will be a little unique. I wanted a crib that would be easy for my wife to change the sheets, adjustable mattress height, and an adjustable front slide gate. The crib will be made mostly out of Walnut, but the slats in the back, sides, and front will be Sycamore. The wood is from the lumber we got from my wife’s Uncle’s sawmill. My Dad and I are building it together. I hope that it will be something that we can pass down to our kids someday.

Back to the design. The front gate will have hidden hardware in it, the right side and back will be stationary. The left side will consist of a frame and a gate in it. The gate will allow the mattress to be slid out so the sheets can be changed easily.

Here it is.

The design has changed a little in the fact that the mattress will be supported on springs and adjustable metal hardware more like a typical crib.