Sellers home Bed: Episode 9
It’s always hard to visualise a dozen boards of wood and then see it come out as a bed when you begin, but this episode bridges the gap.
It’s always hard to visualise a dozen boards of wood and then see it come out as a bed when you begin, but this episode bridges the gap.
We are on the verge of finally assembling the bed, so we cut and fit the side rails to both the headboard and footboard. The hardware must have certain exactnesses so that the two parts seat well and come together tight, otherwise the head or footboard will rattle.
Having made the headboard and footboard frames, we must layout and prepare for attaching the slats in place. It’s an exciting point to see these two important sections of the work come together.
With the head and footboard joinery completed, there are additional shaping procedures to take. All four of the shaped posts must provide for the ends of the side rail to sit squarely to them.
With almost no straight lines to the head and footboard posts, we use many techniques to get perfect results.
Chopping mortises that do not run parallel to the long axis of the wood requires additional techniques to ensure the walls are cut by severing the fibres as you chop to gain depth. Additionally, because the posts are curved, we cannot use the usual mortise guide to guarantee parallelity.
Cutting the joints for the bed frames, head and footboard, requires some shifts in perspective because they do not always parallel the long edge corners but follow curves as well. In this episode, Paul uses a couple of tools you may not have seen him use for joinery before.
To ensure the accuracy we need, it is often best to create a template to work with. That way, the template enables the markings and shapes to be transferable and retains a record and pattern for future use. In this episode, the steps are laid out to ensure complete success.
Paul may be criticised for playing in this episode, but once he created this mock-up, took it into the house from the garage, and set it up as a placeholder in the bedroom, Paul saw just exactly what he wanted to see; he needed to know exactly how it would fit into the limits of the bedroom.
This is the landing page for the Bed which Paul is making for Sellers Home. We will update with a proper introduction to the project shortly!