Arts & Crafts Crib

This is the arts & crafts crib that I built for our daughter. Plan came from modifying the sizes for the Arts & Crafts Bed from Wood Magazine Oct. ‘04 issue. Each leg is cut from four pieces of quartersawn white oak mitered and splines cut it for more support. This was very difficult to line up all the miters when gluing up each leg. I also use the tip that was suggested in the magazine on clamping the legs together by wrapping each leg with old bicycle inter tubes (picture 6).

Picture 2 shown how I marked each piece out before cutting. This help greatly in making sure that there was enough wood to complete the project. All the wood was rough saw white oak in both quarter and rift saw. My hardwood supplier also resawed one board to be used in the side panels.

Picture 3 and 4 shown some assembly that I did to check dimensions would fit the crib mattress. Blue painters tape works good for temporarily holding sections together. The top and bottom rails of the both the head and foot board are mortise and tenon to the legs. The sides attach to the head and foot board with the bed two heavy duty wrought steel bed rail fasteners from Rockler. Each was mortised into the sides and legs. The screws holes were drilled and taped for #8 size machine screws. The bed is held in place by popular strips of wood screwed to the foot and head board and a sheet of 1/2” birth plywood. The bed is fixed at one level.

To give it a little something extra the wife and I decided to add the initials from our last names (picture 5). In order to get the font and style that we liked we required the help from the local Rockler store and there Shark CNC machine. The letters turned out exceptionally well with little sanding needed. The Shark CNC is really amazing machine. Will be making a video the next time that we have to use the machine.

Project was finished with 3 coats of hand applied General Finishes Arm-R-Seal Oil & Urethane Topcoat. Sanded with 320 after the first coat and 0000 steel wool before the final coat. Finished turned out really smooth.

Next project is to build the matching dresser. Thanks for looking.