Tapering the posts

It has been almost 2 weeks since my last post. I was able to put the main taper on the posts last Saturday and build the jig to do the octagonal tapers. I still need to cut the actual octagonal tapers.

Cutting the main taper on all 4 sides of each post was a bit of a challenge requiring some careful work. I was a bit nervous to cut the tapers freehand so I built a jig that presented the posts to the bandsaw blade at the correct angle. Not sure if I wound up saving any time doing it that way but at least my cuts were quasily consistent.

I rough cut each face, then planed any major high spots off with the hand plane and finished the face with the jointer to ensure that I cut them square.  To prevent the posts from moving while I planed I simply clamped a piece of 2x2 oak to the end of the assembly table and butted the post end against it while planing. I really liked how nicely the jack plane was cutting the cherry. It did a much nicer job then the jointer. Part of that was probably the akewardness of jointing a tapered face and the fact that I probably should either hone the blades or put in a freshly sharpened set.

It took a few hours but eventually we got all 16 faces tapered. At the end of the day it felt good to be able to take all the posts and place them next to each other and see that all the tapers were extremely close to being an exact match. All told it probably took me 8 hours to get the tapers all cut and to make two jigs. The jig to cut the remaining 4 tapers to complete the octagon on each post is not shown. 

It may well be another week or two before I can do much more on it. I'm going to need to put in a ton of overtime at work for the next couple of weeks. Which is part of the reason it took so long to upload these images as well.

Finished milling the rough lumber

On Monday I finished machining the rough lumber down to final widths and/or thicknesses. Pieces have not yet been cut to length and the tester frame and head board pieces still need to be ripped to final width.

It's a good start. It will probably be Saturday before I can even think of touching it again. Although if the opportunity presents itself I would like to get the headboard edge glued so it can be machined when time permits.

Pencil Post Bed - Day 1

The pencil post bed that I'll be building is a design by Lonnie Bird as described in Fine WoodWorking magazine article "Build a Pencil-Post Bed".

The image to the right shows the rough boards that will make up the bulk of the bed. The three 12/4 boards will form the four posts and the 2 long rails and 2 short rails. The two 8/4 boards will be used for the headboard and the tester frame. The extra 12/4 stock will be set aside for future projects.

The final dimensions of the posts will be 2 1/2" square. The rails will be 3 1/2" wide by 2 1/4" thick. I had hoped to get all four posts out of the 10' board. Unfortunately after closer examination, I found a loose knot really put a kink in that idea. I drew out a pattern of one post to see how the knot would affect the post. I had hoped it would fall into the waste but alas it was going to jut into a section of the top section of the post. Since I could potentially get an additional post out of one of the two 8' without severe negative  consequences I decided to the affected post aside.

I had to get out my finest woodworking tools to make the intial length cuts on the 12/4 stock. I'm certain Husquvarna is known for their fine woodworking tools.

My old 8" Delta Homecraft tablesaw from the 1950's is just not capable of coming close to being able to rip these boards to width so I'll need to use my 14" bandsaw. Before I could rip them I wanted to make sure that at least one edge of each board was straight. We managed to resolve that issue by using my Craftsman 6" jointer from the 1960's. I have to admit that the old jointer handled the heavy load flawlessly. The fence on the jointer can be a bit "weak" and flexes a bit if you are pushing a piece of wood against it and it can be a bit of pain to get square. But once it is set it tends to stay in good alignment.

Once one side was straightened with jointer, it was a fairly simple task to rip the boards to width on the bandsaw. I'm using a 1/2" 3TPI Timberwolf blade to do the ripping. The Timberwolf blades are awesome I can cut a ton of wood before the blade begins to dull. When I first bought the bandsaw I was expecting to use it primarily for cutting curves but to be honest I use it almost weekly for resawing lumber or ripping larger stock like this.

By the end of Saturday I had completed ripping all the 12/4 stock, jointing two sides square and rough planed the boards for the headboard to about 7/8" thick. I plan to do the final planing on Monday  and hopefully get the headboard glued up. There is one small knot in the headboard as visible just below the tape measure. Some of it will plane out. It will add a bit of character I guess. Cutting the posts revealed a lot of small pin knots that weren't visible on the outside of the board. Guess that can be expected when dealing with such thick boards.

Looks like I'll have to make a trip to Richmond tomorrow morning to get a new 45 degree chamfer bit to put the chamfer on the octagonal posts. While I'm there hopefully I can get the bed bolts. I'm trying to get a really good start on the bed over this President's Day weekend. Depending on how things go tomorrow I'll have a better idea of how many weeks it will take to get it to completion.

New Woodworking Project - Pencil Post Bed

My first blog posting coincides with the start of a new woodworking project - building a pencil post bed out of cherry for my daughter's room that doubles as our guest room. I've chosen her room to be an experiment in colonial style furniture. My hope over the next couple of years is to build out additonal furniture pieces in various colonial styles including Queen Anne and perhaps some Shaker influenced pieces. So far my grand plan is to have a Queen Anne high boy, a blanket chest, and 2 night stands. I'd also like to make a small desk in the Queen Anne style.

Over the past year I've created a lot of furniture for the house. All of it to date has been out of oak and primarily in the Craftsman style. I designed a couple of the pieces for the master bedroom to match elements of the headboard of the bed in the master bedroom and as such don't specifically follow any particular style.

Over the past 14 months I've been able to complete the following projects:

1. Finished the dresser for the master bedroom that I started in Washington (my own design).
2. Built matching nightstands (my own design)
3. Built a desk - Craftsman style for my son. This was copied from a picture I found on the Internet at a high end Craftsman furniture store.
4. Built two bow armed Morris chairs and matching ottomans based off the American Furniture Design pattern.
5. Designed and built a couch that utilizing the Morris chair design then augmented with my own concept to make it into a couch. 

I hadn't planned on making the pencil post bed for at least another 8 months or so but my dad called and said there is a good chance my stepmother and himself may be stopping by at the end of May. Since January I've been doing a ton more progamming in the evenings and weekends on a new product we are building at work. Thus if I'm going to have a hope and prayer of getting the bed done I figured I had better start now.

Friday's task was to buy the 12/4 cherry lumber that I'd need for the posts and rails. I had hoped to do the rails out of 10/4 since it was a little cheaper but alas the lumber yard did not have any. When I did my lumber budget estimate on Thursday night I had figured the minimal amount to be ~$300  (exact board footage) with a more likely scenario of closer to $350. Unfortunately the lumber yard was out of 10/4 Cherry and only had about a dozen 12/4 boards in total to choose from. Thankfully my wife didn't blow her stack when she found out I had spent a little over $400 on the lumber. Before I left for the lumber yard, I did a quick browse at some measured drawings for the high boy I'd like to create so that most of the "waste" 12/4 stock from this project should be enough lumber to make the cabriole legs and thicker mouldings.

Hopefully I'll have time tomorrow to post some pictures and narrative of the first day of woodworking on the project.