I designed and built this baby bed for our first son Hank.
Not everyone is into gun stuff, but this bed was designed with respect to the greatest gun maker of all time. I've held John Browning's mechanical genius in high regard for most of my adult life, so for the design I thought it would be great to implement components of some of my favorite John Browning designed firearms. They all didn't carry his name in production, but each of them came from his hands. At one point in time, 85 % of the firearms in circulation were designed by Mr. Browning in his Utah workshop.
The front rail was built with the Winchester lever action in mind. Two stocks that meet in the middle. Each one is hand checkered at the forearm. I chose the best board of walnut I had for this piece. It had a completely different color tone and grain pattern that really stood out.
On the back of the bed under the buckmark logo are cutouts in the shape of the Browning Auto 5. The famous hump back Auto 5 is one of the most recognizable shotguns in history. My grandpa loved his 20 ga Auto 5. While I don't have grandpa's, I look forward to passing mine on to Hank.
The top cap on the two front legs have grooves cut in them like the slide on a 1911 .45. The connection with the famous .45 ACP goes a little further, as each hole that contains a connecting bolt is capped with a .45 shell casing. Not only did he design this gun, he created the .45 ACP for it.
We didn't want the bed to scream "Hey look, I'm a gun!", but we still wanted the theme to come across. We chose walnut for the wood, and the railing was made of steel. Before final assembly, the railing was sent to a local gunsmith for a hot blueing.
To top off the whole thing, I hand carved the buckmark logo into the back of the bed.
It took a year to design, learn, build, and finish this bed. Its not perfect by any means. Mistakes are up one side and down the other. Its the first piece of furniture I've ever tackled, so this is to be expected. Overall my wife and I are happy with it. Hank seems to be too.
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