I finally got a chance to get back at the pencil post bed that I'm making for my daughter. The pressure is on, I have 25 days to get the bed complete, however, I also have a massive deadline at work. If I don't make significant progress today and hopefully finish off the woodworking next weekend I'm in big trouble. The day saw great progress on a number of fronts and a two minor errors on my part because I was rushing myself. One is a fixable mistake and the other is one where if you didn't know it wasn't supposed to be that way, you wouldn't know it existed.
I started the work last night actually, by laying out the mortises on the posts and doing basic prep work for today. The day started by cutting the mortises in the posts beginning with the 8 rail mortises - 3/4" wide, 3/4" deep by 3-1/2" long. That was the first mistake - the 3-1/2" long. It was what was called for on the drawing but I had completely forgotten that I had to make a minor compromise when sizing the rails and wound up with rails that were 3-1/4" high - not the 3-1/2" that were called for in the plans. It is a fixable error, I'll need to glue in a 1/4" piece into the lower end of each mortise slot, this won't be visible in the finished bed since it will be hidden by the rails themselves being 2-1/4" wide. Depending on how well I match the wood, they may not be noticeable at all. I'm still kicking myself in the butt for it but alas not much that I can do now.
Cutting the mortises in 2 passes using the 3/8" chisel, flipping the post end for end to make sure that the mortise wound up dead center.
Cutting the long mortise for the headboard required using double stick tape to put the cut-offs from the tapers back onto the tapered section of the pencil post bed to allow me to cut the mortises along the center line of the post. It took a bit of time to get all 3 sides taped onto each post. Three sides because I needed the bottom to be flat so that the post didn't tip while cutting the mortise and two sides so that I could flip the post around and cut the mortises in two passes just like I did for the rail mortises above. If you look closely you will see the tapered cut-offs on the sides of the taper at the bottom of the picture.
Mortises are complete both rail and headboard mortises. After cutting them, I cleaned up to the final width using a chisel and in the case of the headboard mortise I carefully sanded the long slot on the inside to make sure that the headboard would slide in. It is still a bit tight, I will need to loosen things up just a touch before I do any final finishing and assembly.
With the mortises complete and the headboard mortises in place I decided to cut the headboard and route it to final shape. I used the bandsaw to cut the rough shape and since the curves were not very tight, I went ahead and used the 1/2" blade that I had in the saw. It worked but I should have used a 1/4" blade instead. I'm running a bit short on 93-1/2" blades as most of my new blades are 105" as I have a riser block to put into the bandsaw. I'm waiting until I either have a need for the riser block or I've exhausted my supply of 93-1/2" blades before switching. That way I don't have a bunch of blades laying around that I can't use after I put in the riser block.
Johannes helped support the board when it hung way off the edge of the table and Chandra made sure she recorded it all with the camera. I didn't take time to take a photo while routing the final shape. I used the template I had made out of 1/4" plywood and used a pattern bit to cut the final shape. The end result was a very smooth cut with almost no sanding required. I still have to sharpen the point on the dip in the center of the profile but that is about it. With the head board completed, we took the time to assemble it onto the posts and show Shae-Lynn what the headboard will eventually look like. I think the bed might be a tad big for such a small girl.
It also appears that I may need to create a matching piece for on top of the profile so that the bed can server dual purpose - head board and stocks when Shae misbehaves. Though I'm thinking I don't really want to have anyone throwing rotten eggs or tomatoes in the house. So alas she may get a reprieve - but when she decided to pose like this it certainly ran through my wife's head - she said it (not me).
Finally after supper, we cut the rails to length and cut the tenons onto each end using the dado blade, sacrifical fence and a long support on the miter guage. In the rush to finish up, this is where I made my 2nd big mistake. I knew the tenon needed to be 3/4" wide and I knew I put the mortise dead center and for some reason I made the assumption the tenon would be dead center. But alas it was actually supposed to be 1/8" off center. 5/8" to the front of the rail and 7/8" to the back of the rail. This would have given a 1/4" reveal on the front of the posts where the rails met the post and would have made the rails flush with the inside of the post. Now there is a 1/8" reveal on the front and a 1/8" reveal at the back. Not the end of the world and if I didn't write it here, most people would never know it was supposed to be off centered. Functionally it won't make a big difference if any.
I had to fit the rails to the posts using my Lie Nelson medium shoulder plane - the most expensive hand tool I own but it does a really nice job. I use it more than any of the other planes I have.
We finally got it all together for the first visual of what the bed will eventually look like.
We don't have the bed bolts in yet, its simply held together by friction and the two really long pipe clamps I bought when I was building the couch. We decided to leave it up over night so that Shae can see what the bed will look like.
Next weekend I have to drill the bed bolt holes, then refine the fit just a bit. Everything needs to fit a little looser in order to make it possible to assemble and disassemble the bed in the future. I need to build the tester frame for around the top and put in the dowels on the tops of the posts. Need to cut the 20 or so slats I need for under the mattress and I need to find some 1"x1" x 80" angle iron to hold the slats. And of course put the 1/4" spacer in the bottom of the mortises I cut too long. Then lots of sanding, scraping and prep work and then finishing it.
It is going to be a huge challenge to get it all done in the next 25 days. I have a ton of work to do at work that will require me working a lot of overtime over the next few weeks. Time will be tight but at least now that we've made it this far, there is at least a hope that it can be completed.
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