Ash & Boxelder Crib

[Chestnut]

The next project in line is to get the crib made for Nutmeg. Beings that a crib is a short use item I decided to utilize some "free" wood. The slats are going to come from some box elder that was the first tree I both felled and milled where we live. I never expected to get anything usable from this tree due to it's deteriorated state when it was cut down. The main trunk had splits all over while it was standing. This was reinforced when the boards dried as the piratically exploded. Luckily the slats I need are small. Just milled and fully dried.

I'm pretty sure slabs 2 and 3 came from the log in the first image. To process these slabs down I cut the pieces to length with a few inches each end. I then used my track saw to straiten one edge so the slabs could be jointed and run through the band saw. This wood did NOT dry well. I chose these slabs because they were the worst offenders twisted and warped. The small pieces I need would be able to be taken from the slabs easily. As Shannon says you can joint a board with a saw faster than any other method.

In all I got about 40 usable pieces and I need maybe 34? Waste was high on this one, my estimate is this was 64 Board feet of lumber reduced to 40 2" x 1.25" slats.

The slats were cut close to length trimming off parts that were split or had defects. I set up a stop block and did this at my miter saw. I use 1/4" mdf for a sacrificial fence. To attach it I've been using the painters tape and super glue, This works really well for the most part but does require me to stick the sacrificial fence back on from time to time as it does get bumped off. I don't use it for zero clearance as much as I use it to make marks and write on.

Having a rolling cart in the shop makes moving material around to different stations really easy. My rolling cart doubles as storage for hardware and lathe tools.

While I was working on the slats I was also working on the material for the structure of the crib. This will be from ash that I got locally. I forgot to take pictures of the material but it was dried a lot better and as a result was much easier to process. The parts I needed were laid out, mistakes were made, designs were changed and I honestly feel like I made it to a better point as a result.

The mistake was trying to make the legs from laminated material turning 1" thick material into a 2" thick leg. It turns out that I would have ran out of lumber had I tried to make the legs that way. I started thinking about ways to make the legs smaller BUT I had already cut the rails so I was locked into leg dimensions or the crib mattress won't fit....

I found a solution, I decided to make the legs an L shape with a long miter. This will allow me to make the legs look better in the long run as I could make the miter joint a waterfall joint preserving grain around the corner.

I ran the miters on the table saw. I wasn't too concerned about getting everything perfectly square. At these sizes I can easily joint the end product and run it through the planer ensuring the faces and edges are all square/strait/parallel. What was tricky was gluing the long miter. I used some dominoes to act as alignment aids. I also used the off cut from the miter to cut smaller and use as cauls to get clamping force in the right location. Using CA glue and activator, the cauls stick strong enough to get a good joint but are easily knocked off with a  hammer.

The end result was great. I will point out that I left the miters a bit shy, so the edges didn't come to points. This was intentional as I was planning on doing a pretty heavy round over removing that material anyway.

Back to the slats. Once cut to length the slats were taken to the jointer and one side and one edge were trued. Many passes through the planer will mill the slats down to size. Unfortunately the dust collector bin that was empty at the beginning of this thread is now full and requires emptying.

[Ronn W]

Interesting project.  Looking forward to tagging along.  too bad about the poor condition of the Box Elder there was some i nteresting flaming.

[Chestnut]

20 hours ago, Ronn W said:

Interesting project.  Looking forward to tagging along.  too bad about the poor condition of the Box Elder there was some i nteresting flaming.

There defiantly is some good flame in the box elder but some was lost due to waste yes. I do have other slabs that dried much better and didn't break apart as much. I'd have to go through the stack of slabs to see how much of it has the flame color.

[pkinneb]

On 3/15/2022 at 8:38 AM, Chestnut said:

 

Drew I look forward to following along looking good so far. Really cool that you are using wood from your yard!

On another note I'm starting to think you are purposely sending my OCD into over drive with a couple of these picks...you really need to cut the end of that bench off even  

[Chet]

On 3/16/2022 at 8:57 AM, pkinneb said:

you really need to cut the end of that bench off even 

Yes, please could you do that.

[Coop]

Drew, did you happen to take pics of the legs in clamps? I’m sure I’ve seen the mitered pieces used as cauls but don’t recall and it’s hard for me to visualize.

[Chestnut]

10 hours ago, Coop said:

Drew, did you happen to take pics of the legs in clamps? I’m sure I’ve seen the mitered pieces used as cauls but don’t recall and it’s hard for me to visualize.

Dang that'd have been a good picture to take. I neglected to capture one. I can try and draw it out and explain it though.

So looking down the end of the leg, you'd position the cauls that you glue on in a way that will allow the clamp to put force on the center of the miter. The center is the middle in the up and down orientation below.

The cauls are obviously the triangles that are extending out from the face. It's best to just use the off cut from cutting the miter as that makes sure the angle is close to right. This technique will work for any angle you wish. It just takes a bit of examining to make sure you clamp the caul on the right way.

.... man i spent the time drawing threads on the screw and they don't even show up all that well.... that was wasted time. The screw is a bit long too....

[wtnhighlander]

I have a question about this technique, as I typically don't glue anything together before the surfaces are near finish-ready. How difficult is it to avoid damaging the keeper surface when you remove the clamping blocks?

[Chestnut]

22 minutes ago, wtnhighlander said:

I have a question about this technique, as I typically don't glue anything together before the surfaces are near finish-ready. How difficult is it to avoid damaging the keeper surface when you remove the clamping blocks?

Damaging the surface for me wasn't an issue. CA glue with activator is relatively weak and breaks easily with out damaging the surface. This will come down to the wood used though. If a person does this on a soft wood it would be advisable to try a different route. I know Cremona will use a softer wood for the caul for example he'd glue on cedar, this would result in the caul breaking off before the project part would be damaged.

Both my method and Cremona's method result in glue and some wood fibers being left behind. This is raised so a little sanding would easily clean it up. One should take care doing this on large pore woods like red oak and ash that will receive a dye or stain. The CA glue could be left behind causing some uneven finishing.

[Coop]

I don’t understand all I know about CA glue. Is it the thin stuff that’s most commonly used and in your application Nut? 

[Chestnut]

9 hours ago, Coop said:

I don’t understand all I know about CA glue. Is it the thin stuff that’s most commonly used and in your application Nut? 

Coffee hasn't kicked in some I'm not fully understanding the question. I use the stickfast CA glue in medium. https://www.rockler.com/quick-set-glue-2-5-oz

When the spray activator is used with CA glue the glue becomes weaker and more brittle. This helps the situation allowing the cauls to be broken off easier with less potential damage to the project part.

[Mark J]

23 hours ago, Chestnut said:

man i spent the time drawing threads on the screw and they don't even show up all that well.... that was wasted time. The screw is a bit long too....

Talk about OCD.  

[Chet]

Drew have you tried using the blue tape and CA glue to attach clamping cauls?

[Chestnut]

2 hours ago, Chet said:

Drew have you tried using the blue tape and CA glue to attach clamping cauls?

Yes for small cauls like this, i have not had good luck with it though. If the cauls have more surface area for the tape they can work otherwise they just seperate pretty easily.

[Chestnut]

Made some good progress on the crib in the last few days. There is a lot of tedium with this build but in general the construction will be relatively simple. I need 34 slats for all 4 sides to achieve the right spacing with the width that I ended up with. The slat thickness is right around 16mm or 5/8".

Once everything was milled all that needed to be done was determine layout of the slats. I chose the more vibrant slats for the front of the crib. Or possibly the rear, I'm not sure yet. Beings that the end construction will be knock down with the front and rear being removable, my intent isn't to decide until everything is finished. I'll achieve the knock down by using M&T and securing them with pins.

Front

Less exciting rear.

Once the slat layout was done I took everything to the table saw and cut to length. Probably should have done this before but I was able to put the pieces back together easy enough.

After the slats were cut to length I marked center lines and plunged a mortise with the domino. After the salts were taken care of i adjusted the domino to center the slats on the rails and plunged the mortises to hold the slats.

I didn't take any pictures but each of the slats got a 1/4" round over on all 4 sides. This made them nice and soft edges. After the slats were prepped it was time to assemble the side assemblies.

I still need to do a lot of finish prep on the side assemblies. I wanted to do this once they were assembled. The ash has a lot of squirly grain and did not take hand planing well. No matter what direction it seemed like I get massive tear out.

[BonPacific]

Looking awesome. I've had the same problems with ash. The only thing that worked well enough for me (though still not glassy smooth) was a bevel-up jack with a 38* blade.

[Chestnut]

9 minutes ago, BonPacific said:

was a bevel-up jack with a 38* blade.

My bronze #4 has a 55 degree frog it and and will handle figure in maple and cherry with ease. It wasn't able to do anything on the ash. The only thing that makes sense to me is that because the wood is so flexible when the grain changes it doesn't break but just tears. I can take 1/4" off cuts and bend them completely around my knee and they won't even make sounds like it's about to break. I really wanted to try steam bending this wood as i'm sure you could do crazy things with it but i never grot around to it.

[Ronn W]

You got somw realy nice flame for the front (back) of the crip.  Nice work. I have a 50* blade for my bevel up smoother but haven't tired it on that species.

[Chestnut]

This project went fast. Picture heavy post again. With the ends together it was time to glue the sides together. The sides will be held together with the dominoes in the slats to the top and bottom rail. I can't rely on the joinery to the legs with the ends due to the knock down nature of the crib. To ensure that everything was square and true, once glue was applied I made sure the entire crib was assembled while the glue dried.

With the sides assembled it was time to work on the pins to hold everything together. I did floating M&T on the side rails, even though I had originally intended to do integral. Someone messed up dimensions and forgot to include the tenon length and material thickness when they were making their cut list.... my shop assistant is a jerk. To drill the holes for the pins The sides were too big to fit in my drill press. I finally used the feature where you swing the head to the side to gain some additional space.

I couldn't take a picture with the side in place because it was too awkward to sit there and i needed 2 hands just to hold it. Needless to say it worked great. I made a template with a fence to lay out the holes to make sure that everything was identical. I want to be able to swap the sides around if need be and I think this worked. I didn't  mark the sides and everything went together.

Once the holes were in the legs I drilled through the tenon. I didn't draw bore these as just pinning them was more than strong enough. The large tenons were almost enough to prevent racking and the pins added just that little extra.

With that finished it was time for surface prep and finish. The card scraper and sander got used a lot. The wood had a lot of tear out despite the segmented helical cutter heads on the planer and jointer. This is worse that curly hard maple. Finish is shellac. I applied the shellac with a Hake brush and did 3 heavy coats on every surface. I did not do the greatest job with the finish and there are some runs and streaks. I should have sprayed the finish but the weather isn't nice enough. If the end user complains i'l put her on time out.

With finish out of the way I just cobbled together a method to hold the mattress. I used 2 pieces of maple, I have run out of ash and didn't want to grab another box elder slab. These will be bolted to the legs using wood thread taps.

I used tape to do layout for the bolts. Drilled and tapped.

Made a pile of slats from some 2x4s that were getting underfoot.

With that done it was time to move the pieces into the room and assemble. I didn't include a picture of the floating tenon that will be pinned.

Here is the leg with the brass pins installed. Shows some of the character. I really like how the knots look on quatersawn material. Oh I filled a lot of defects with CA glue. I was too lazy to mix epoxy. I should have because CA glue is far more expensive.

Here are some glamor shots of the room. We will be adding some minor decorations and a few wall shelves.

The top of the side table is made from the same ash as the crib. The stump for the box elder tree can be seen from the window. The part that was cut down would have been visible from the crib.

[wtnhighlander]

Looking great, Drew! I can't wait to see the first pic you post with little Nutmeg peeking over the rail!

[Chestnut]

40 minutes ago, wtnhighlander said:

Looking great, Drew! I can't wait to see the first pic you post with little Nutmeg peeking over the rail!

I'm excited for that as well. It might be a while takes what 6-9 months for babies to stand with assistance so I'll update in a year!

[pkinneb]

Very nice Drew!!