WIP: Double Bed Headboard (Completed 03/04/09)

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joiner_sim

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You can get the latest updates first on my website: http://www.simonswoodwork.tk

Day One

I brought a new double bed a few months ago, and the headboad did not come with it. They wanted extra. Looking at the various designs & styles available, I liked the look of the wooden ones. However, at a cost of between £100-200 for something like this below, it really did not seem worth the money, especially when I knew I could make it cheaper instead! So here's the new project...... (based on a design of bedworld.net)

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Here is my design with all dimensions and cutting list. Making it my own piece.

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I got all the timber machined up before christmas, and it has been stored on bearers in the workshop til now. Here's what I've got to work with, its all softwood.

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I haven't been in the workshop to work before christmas, because there's no heating and it's been really cold! Today's temperature in the shop reached 14 degrees at the most at one point. Here's what it was before I started work.

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My first thing to do was get everything marked out, well the main framing marked out at least. Mortice & tennon joints, will be the only joint I use on this project. As you can see, the three rails, and two stiles are marked out.

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To do the mortices, I'm using a cordless drill with a 10mm flat bit in, that takes out most of the timber for me.

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The I'm cleaning it out properly with a chisel. Using 10mm & 25mm Irwin/marples chisels.

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The stiles are now both completley morticed. May I also point out, I using a new format of workbench today. I'm using a large offcut from a fire door apeture, with a vice I already have screwed on top of it. The worktop is sitting on top of two CLARKE folding trestles. At some point I hope I can incorporate a router into the table top.

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With the tennons marked out, I am cutting the shoulders by hand with my tennon saw, as I found in the past my bandsaw, is just not accurate enough for a clean cut.

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The thickness of the tennon is then cut on my bandsaw. A 10" Wickes, with a DRAGON SAW blade in it.

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And now to cut the haunches, to save having to mark out the haunches on the 6 tennons, I setup a fence on the bandsaw and it was done quickly, thinking about it now, I wish I had cut the tennon thickness this way too!

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As before, I cut the shoulders off with my tennon saw, as the bandsaw is not accurate enough in my opinion, here's the tennon finished.

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And now for a dry assembly of the main frame.

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Here's a close up of the joint on the face.

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And one of the edge. I'm going to cut some wedge room, and wedge it. However I'm thinking about the wedge. Should I just do it plain softwood, or would it look effective as a hardwood wedge? What do you think?

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With the dry assembly done, I thought I'd go and check it against the bed its for. I then realised that where my mullions are for attaching the the bed, I'd misread my drawing and marked them out wrong by 50mm! Good thing I checked it! You can see how far out I was.......

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And here it is again, dry assembly with the attachment mullions in place. They are 18mm think and my rails are 22mm. Now yes shoulders are best for tennons anyways, but I was hoping to just mortice a hole and slide the whole timber piece in. This was not possible as there'd be nothing left in the rail! My mistake here in the cutting list, however the shoulders are better and hide the joint altogether. Unfortunatley though, I will have to adapt this approach for the slats above, because I got them out at 18x18mm! More work, but I think it'll be a better job because of it. Just wish, I'd thought it thru before!

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The joints so far......

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I probably be continuing with this project next weekend. All I have left to do before a glue up is, mark out the length of all the slats, there 22 in total. Then setup a fence on the bandsaw again and take off 4mm, both side of the tennon to fit into my 10mm mortices. Which have to be cut still, so thats 88 shoulders to be cut, 44 tennons cut to length and 44 10mm mortices to be done! I think that will probably be the longest part of the project time wise. I just hope that my patience will keep and every joint is done as well as the first one! Then before glueing up, comes the finishing of all the edges I won't be able to access after glue-up. I have now got a scraper set, but not sure how to use these & how to sharpen, advice would be appreciated please. My other alternative is getting out the orbital sander, although I've heard from others that the scrapers give a lovely finish. I'm thinking of staining in honey pine, antique pine or dark oak. Should I varnish it after the staining? All comments on the project so far, and advice on my problems that I have, are very much appreciated! Thankyou, for taking the time to look at this project so far!
 
Looks good simon, you'll be the expert in M+T when this is done. Did you consider getting a Morticer for the job? Nice small bench standing one?
 
Lol, I'm already an expert in machined mortice and tennons as use them all day, but I never have to do them, only have to fix them! This job will truely test me!!! I considered getting a morticer, or even just taking the timber into work and mortising it there! Firstly, money, don't really want to spend it, secondly space, I have none :lol: ..... but thirdly, it's the whole point of my home workshop, to do stuff hand crafted...... minus the bandsaw, the drill and the various other portable power tools that are there! :lol: I think it's sorta therapuetic for me, making joinery with minimal machinery, after using machines day in, day out.
 
I tend to use a mortice chisel to cut out my mortice joints. I don't have a moticer, just the chisels. They work perfectly when used like a normal chisel - remember to take the bit out first though!!
 
im interested to know, why would it be a wee bit scary simon?

Chems, yes i remove the bulk of the waste by either routering or drilling out the bulk of the material to be removed, then i use the mortice chisel to square up the corners. so much faster than with a standard chisel cos' you are squaring 3 faces in one go.
 
Looking good so far, Simon. Most projects have their downsides and, it sounds like yours is coming up with all those mortises... :shock: Once that's out of the way though, you'll feel the build is really coming along and you'll be very close to completing it! :wink:

I think hardwoods wedges would provide a nice contrast but, if you're going to stain this piece anyway, does it really matter?

If you intend to stain it, I've got a bit of advice for you...

What I found really helped with my blanket chest (also pine) was to first apply a thin coat of sanding sealer (mixed 50/50 with thinners) BEFORE staining. Then, apply your choice of stain. Thinning this down a little also helps; I found one coat was enough. And finally, another coat of sealer (can be thicker than before). It's easier to do all this before you start gluing up. You should apply your knotting after the stain and denib in between coats with 400g SiC paper. It worked for me! :wink: :)
 
Hope my missus doesn't see this thread, she's been asking for a headboard for our new bed for ages. :D

You must have some passion for your hobby considering you are making things at work all day as well, I envy you. The danger with doing any job that is also a hobby is that sometimes that passion can be lost after time. I hope this doesn't happen to you Simon.

Keep it up

regards

Brian
 
I find when I'm at home doing some woodwork, its completley different to work. And I can distance myself from it. I could easily knock this headboard up within a matter of a few hours at work, using all the machines that are available. But then it would just be work. At home, its time and patience, and tea breaks :wink: Using the tools I want to use, and how I want to use them.
 
Today, I first started off byt chopping out all the mortices for the slatted part. I was using my 10mm flat bit in my cordless drill to take out the bulk of it, and then cleaning out the mortice square with a 10mm chisel and a 12mm chisel. The mortice was 18mm wide, but a piece of advice from me is to use a smaller one, like the 12mm to clear the width of the mortice as a chsel thats exactly the right size can get stuck and even cause the timber to split by forcing its way thru when its too tight.

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One rail down, one to go.

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Both of the rails all morticed, 50 mortices in total!

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I then marked out one of the slats off the stiles and then to save time sash clamped all the slats together and sqaured the line acorss in one go.

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I was going to cut all the shoulders on my bandsaw. I did about 2 or 3 tennons, and the blade snapped! Got out the spare and that snapped!!!! So my bandsaw is now dormant til I get a new blade.

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I resorted to cutting all the 25 slats, 50 tennons, 100 shoulders, by......... hand!

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The end result after lots of sawing.

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A dry assembly of just the slats.....

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A close-up of all the joints.....

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The end product, well...... nearly, its a dry assembly it all needs cleaning up, gluing and a top capping putting on, also the stiles cutting to their correct length. Hope you are enmjoying my progress so far!

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Please leave your comments and suggestions, thanks! :wink:

> Also, what would you guys think would be the best finish for this project? I'm going to stain it as you know. Do I use cabinet scrapers, or do I orbital sand it?
 
Its a really nice feeling when you finally get the rails and stiles to meet and square up, you've done really well there considering its all by hand.
 
Not many cups of tea today then Simon with all those tenons to cut by hand - I think I would have spent the day looking for another bandsaw blade :)

You should be quite pleased with the progress so far, it's looking good.

As for the finish, what about what Olly said above?

regards

Brian
 
Looking good Sim. I can appreciate all the work that has gone into that by hand. I am afraid I haven't got the patients to do it all by hand. I admire your dedication. :wink:
 
Thanks for you great WIP, interesting. Great practice there with all that hand tool work. I don't think I would have had the patience, would have just used a morticer or router.
 
Nope not many cups of tea at all! :roll: My mum and dad were away for the weekend, so I even had to go and fetch em myself! :eek: I started at 11am, and planned to finish up at 4pm, so I decided that I'd have a break at 1.15pm, it was around about that time my bandsaw blade broke just before I stopped for a break! That probably gave me a better patience to complete the joints. I was finished by half 3 in the end with a dry assembly.

To follow on now, I've just got to clean everything up, I am thinking the same as what I did when I made a coffee table, 80 grit, 120 grit and then finish with 180 grit(siliconecarbide) giving it a smooth finish, although now too sure on how the stain would take to it. Would varnishing over the stain look good? :? Once all the inside edges are sanded up, a glue-up will be in order, hopefully that will be day three all done. And then just apply the finishes to it.

Thanks to all of you who have looked and commented on this WIP.
Simon.
-Hopefully more to follow next weekend!
 
Today, I was back in the private shop for the whole afternoon, starting at 3pm and finishing at 7.30pm. With the frame dry assembled, I just needed to clean up all the inside edges. I am trying a new technique I hae not tried before at finishing, on this project. Instead of sing an orbital sander, everything is going to be done by hand. After having to cut almost all the joints by hand, especialy the bandsaw out of action still!!! It feels only right that I should have ago doing it by hand. I got the radio blaring out loud, seeing as there was going to be no other noise apart from the shavings! So I first started off by hand planing up the edges, with my Stanley Baily No.4 easy peasy!

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Now to get out my set of cabinet scrapers I was brought by my girlfriend. They are Footprint Sheffield Steel ones, from Machine Mart. As I have never used these before, I asked for advice from somebody who I work with on how to use and sharpen. To sharpen up I just got a metal file and filed the one edge of the scraper I was going to use. I then got to work with it, well, I first tested my technique on a bit of scrap, then onto the proper job. (Just look at the concentration on my face!!!!)

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I found when using the scraper that you had to go in all different directions to go with the grain, and this is what took the most time, getting it nice and smooth, with the grain!

Then once all the edges well hand planed, smoothened, and then cabinet scraped, I used my Stanley plane again to just take off the sharp corners.

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Then once I'd done all the main frame I got to work on the uprights. Now there are 25 of them, thats erm........ 100 edges to be smoothed and scraped and sharp edges taken off. This took alot of time, and as I write this now there only half done. You can see it it dark outside, compared to the earlier pictures, 7.30pm I started cleaning up! The picture below shows how I was taking off the sharp edges on the uprights, as if I did it in the vice I would have caught my plane undoubtly! Of course I never had my hand under the blade I turned the piece over to do the other ends.

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Now just a workshop shot, to show you the space I have if you haven't seen it already. For night-time working, however I still use my lights in the day, I have a 500W portable floodlight which you cannot see but is just above the ladders, this provides the best lighting, and the light you can see in the photo is just a 60W clip-on bulb for more direct light, when it goes dark outside, and theres no daylight shining thru anymore.

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And for the grand finale, of today's pictures................... All the shavings that were generated! These were about an inch deep all over the floor before I swept up.

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I hope you've enjoyed looking thru this latest update, once again, as usual, please leave me your comments and suggestions. Especially regarding my sharpening and using techniques of the cabinet scraper, as I would like to hear if anyone else does it differently. I thin in the future I will be investing in a scraper plane, to make the work a bit lighter.
 
Finished off the cabinet scraping today, routered the top rail capping, also found out the my plunge lock on the router is bust so will have to purchase a new one soon :( and finally got it glued up :D
 

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