A Peruvian Walnut Cradle #1: And in the beginning...

September 16, 2011

Our first granddaughter was born today, and although I had thought about it for some time leading up to her birth, other “more important things” just kept coming up, but now that she is here, I am seriously starting to build this cradle and don’t really think it will take more than a couple weekends of hard work.

I think she is smiling as she knows that is not going to happen…

Problem number 1 arrived unexpectedly as the Peruvian Walnut I purchased had an odd color inside some of the boards. No way to tell until they were cut or planed. A trip to my supplier with a few samples did not resolve it. I can’t use these boards as it looks like someone stained it a funny green color…

I may as well get the basic shapes jointed and glued while I figure out the joinery. So I plane a few more and pick my best boards and glue them up.

A week later I am still in my shop scratching my head as I cannot figure out how to make the finger joint connection on the hopper shape. Seems like everything I try is not working, and I am making a bunch of small pieces from big ones and this is not fun anymore.

If you don’t know, a hopper shape has two intersecting pieces angled (splayed) to create the corner (mine are each angled at 10 degrees).
Below is an example of compound joinery .

Sometime during the following week I decided to try to use my Leigh jig to make dovetails instead of finger joints, and that isn’t going so well either. I must confess, I have had this jig for many years and it has been used very little.

So I watch the promo video a few more times and now I am inspired, but running into the same issues of open joints and something is obviously missing, but I have a little more machined stock and I will make this work.

After a number of failures and I am quickly using up my walnut, I discover a link on the Leigh site that should help me out. Once I printed off the instructions I was confident it was going to be a breeze, but still cannot quite get the joints to fit perfectly.

After a few more pieces and some adjustments, I was able to make a corner I was satisfied with. Actually quite excited about it as it fit and lined up!

Now that the sample is done, I can get to work on the actual pieces in part 2.

-- Randy "You are judged as much by the questions you ask as the answers you give..."