Bentwood Cradle/Swing Cherry/Curly Maple

Hi Fellow Jocks,
Thought I would share my current project. Since the down turn in my business, I wanted to make something that would keep my mind going in the right direction. A little twisted I’m. I started this project eight months ago. My daughter gave me my first Grandson. I made a Conversion Crib/Bedroom set, I finished before he was born on Nov. 21, 2008, you can see that at my Lumberjock Projects page. This project was thought up one night after I gave her the crib, I thought well if he stays here what do I do? I started with Resaw, cutting laminates 3 1/2” x 24” for the stand canes pictured below. I made these twice to get the form you see. They were made of Cherry sandwiched over Maple. Wood form and Dry laminate clamping culls was the process. Bending was a slow, and rather hard thing to do without cracking, Laminates were 1/16” thick. I made the legs in two sections and milled for tendon slot to receive canes, and glued together. The stretcher was made from the same form as the cradle main frame, I just altered it to bend over half way up the sides. Cut into three equal pieces. Set at angles and made a filler to fill in the center flat sections. Tendon cut into the legs, made maple washer and made Cherry/Maple dowel pins to lock.
The cradle sides were the hard part. Made another wood form for spindles cut laminates wide enough to make a pair at a time. Cherry sandwich Maple, a lot of Resaw work, these had to be about 1/16” x 3 1/4” x12” to form well. I used the same form for top cradle rail as I did for the Cradle main frame, before cut down for stretchers. One side will be fix the front was made to remove so it can be used as a swing later. Spindles were all tendons cut into top cradle rail and lower seat frame.
Sand and More sanding and shaping the spindles. Proved to almost get the best of me. Final fit was also a little problematic, I had to machine down bed rail fasteners to fit behind the rail so to not be seen in full assembled form. I also had to figure out how to fasten the bottom of the removable rail so it would not move in cradle form, I ended up with three Brass Lamp knob that screwed in to wood screw inserts. Three coats of antique oil and wax it’s finished. Structurally it’s very strong I can sit comfortably on it without any give, so I think it will support anything a child can hand out. Hope you all enjoy.

-- Marty Ohio