OPJ
Established Member
This is a job I've agreed to do for big soft moose (Pete) - and, on top of that, it's also my first commissioned piece of furniture! 
I've started this thread mainly to keep Pete up-to-date but, also, because I know I'm gonna need a little bit of advice along the way... :roll: :wink:
Here's the design we agreed on. It'll be made from Scandinavian redwood and finished with an oak stain, to suit both Pete's bed and his budget. Dimensions are 1200mm long x 500mm deep x 800mm high.
It's a simple leg-free frame construction, with T&G boards in between the fill the panels. Ignore the odd-looking detail at the corners, I only drew this one up quickly and haven't bothered to draw in the joint detail! I also need to play around with the layout of the boards a bit, particularly the two outer panels.
I collected the timber yesterday morning from Bristol City Timber. Cost was about £80, including a half-sheet of 12mm hardwood ply (for the base). Generally, I'm satisfied with the overall quality and their service - although, one of the guys there couldn't understand why I didn't want to buy PAR and save myself a lot of work! :roll:
I ordered the timber in the longest lengths I could fit in my car, so that I could then get the back home and start cutting to approximate lengths. I started by cutting the timber for the T&G boards down in to 2'6" lengths, which I could manage more easily on when it came to deep-ripping them on the bandsaw.
I've been playing with a new thin-kerf 5/8" x 4tpi blade from Dragon Saws recently and it surpasses the one Ian sent me six-months ago! In all honesty, it was a little too fine for this kind of work - skip-tooth blade with deep gullets are better for clearing the gunk out of gummy softwoods. It wasn't until the 17th board (out of 20!) that it started to struggle (you'll see why shortly...). Where some of the timber has shakes and splits, I could see smoke escaping at times - from the colour though, I'm pretty sure this was from all the sap inside! :wink:
I haven't built anything in softwood at home for a while - and yesterday, I was reminded of why I used to hate working with the stuff! The blade, wheels, tyres, drive belt, guides and pulleys were all caked in a thick layer of resinous gunk!! :x The saw was vibrating like crazy as I neared the end of my stack! :?
The finish was excellent, by the way and, I was happily using a feed rate of just over 1m/min. :wink:
This was the material that I bought, cut down in length. 32mm would have been plenty, they only had 38mm thick.
Fortunately, I bought a bit more than I needed. So, I should be able to discard most of this ropey-looking stuff... Failing that, I can use it to set up the router table or rip them down in to narrower boards for the outer edges.
You'll hear me complain about the size of my workshop at times but, that's nothing compared to my bedroom in its current state... All I can say is that I'm glad I'm not doing this full-time right now!! :shock:
(You must be glad now that you didn't decide to tackle this one yourself, Pete! :wink
I'll leave it stacked here for about a week before I commence further maching, which is usually plenty of time for kiln-dried softwood to settle down. Not sure how long I can stand the strong smell of resin though, I felt ill when I woke up this morning! :?
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Question Time:
If I finish the rails at 20mm thick, how wide should I rout the grooves for the T&G boards? I was gonna go with 5/16" for an 8mm board but, can't decide whether 3/8" (5mm either side) would be too much? There's plenty of waste for planing either side.
Where can I source some brass chain for a reasonable price? Screwfix only sell ridiculously long rolls that I'd never get through.
I've started this thread mainly to keep Pete up-to-date but, also, because I know I'm gonna need a little bit of advice along the way... :roll: :wink: Here's the design we agreed on. It'll be made from Scandinavian redwood and finished with an oak stain, to suit both Pete's bed and his budget. Dimensions are 1200mm long x 500mm deep x 800mm high.
It's a simple leg-free frame construction, with T&G boards in between the fill the panels. Ignore the odd-looking detail at the corners, I only drew this one up quickly and haven't bothered to draw in the joint detail!
I also need to play around with the layout of the boards a bit, particularly the two outer panels.I collected the timber yesterday morning from Bristol City Timber. Cost was about £80, including a half-sheet of 12mm hardwood ply (for the base). Generally, I'm satisfied with the overall quality and their service - although, one of the guys there couldn't understand why I didn't want to buy PAR and save myself a lot of work! :roll:
I ordered the timber in the longest lengths I could fit in my car, so that I could then get the back home and start cutting to approximate lengths. I started by cutting the timber for the T&G boards down in to 2'6" lengths, which I could manage more easily on when it came to deep-ripping them on the bandsaw.
I've been playing with a new thin-kerf 5/8" x 4tpi blade from Dragon Saws recently and it surpasses the one Ian sent me six-months ago! In all honesty, it was a little too fine for this kind of work - skip-tooth blade with deep gullets are better for clearing the gunk out of gummy softwoods. It wasn't until the 17th board (out of 20!) that it started to struggle (you'll see why shortly...). Where some of the timber has shakes and splits, I could see smoke escaping at times - from the colour though, I'm pretty sure this was from all the sap inside! :wink:
I haven't built anything in softwood at home for a while - and yesterday, I was reminded of why I used to hate working with the stuff! The blade, wheels, tyres, drive belt, guides and pulleys were all caked in a thick layer of resinous gunk!! :x The saw was vibrating like crazy as I neared the end of my stack! :?
The finish was excellent, by the way and, I was happily using a feed rate of just over 1m/min. :wink:
This was the material that I bought, cut down in length. 32mm would have been plenty, they only had 38mm thick.
Fortunately, I bought a bit more than I needed. So, I should be able to discard most of this ropey-looking stuff... Failing that, I can use it to set up the router table or rip them down in to narrower boards for the outer edges.
You'll hear me complain about the size of my workshop at times but, that's nothing compared to my bedroom in its current state... All I can say is that I'm glad I'm not doing this full-time right now!! :shock:
(You must be glad now that you didn't decide to tackle this one yourself, Pete! :wink
I'll leave it stacked here for about a week before I commence further maching, which is usually plenty of time for kiln-dried softwood to settle down. Not sure how long I can stand the strong smell of resin though, I felt ill when I woke up this morning! :?
-----
Question Time:
If I finish the rails at 20mm thick, how wide should I rout the grooves for the T&G boards? I was gonna go with 5/16" for an 8mm board but, can't decide whether 3/8" (5mm either side) would be too much? There's plenty of waste for planing either side.
Where can I source some brass chain for a reasonable price? Screwfix only sell ridiculously long rolls that I'd never get through.
