Sellers Home Bed: Episode 6
Posted 8 February 2023
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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. The steps we show will give you the flat surfaces you need. We have laminated slats to make and then refine, ready for attaching to both the head and footboard. So lots of shaping skills to adopt throughout. Preparing your wood can be a daunting task, but we use some methods you may never have seen before. Tricks of the trade make things much simpler!
Question on wood dimensions. I see the posts Paul has built are 1 1/2″ thickness. Rails appear to be 1″ stock. Could 3/4″ stock give the needed strength for headboard rails and mattress rails? I am asking for a few reasons. First, 1″ stock is not available here (3/4 and maybe 7/8″ are) and I don’t have a much desired bandsaw. Second I plan to downsize this bed to a twin size and perhaps double.
The lack of drawings for recent projects is becoming unacceptable. I notice there have been many requests for drawings going back nearly a year and despite promises to catch up, there are no drawings for the 5 most recent projects. The STARTING point for a project should be the drawings so that timber can be sourced and prepared. It should not be an after thought. I have long been a fan of Paul but am seriously considering cancelling my subscription unless the situation is quickly remedied.
Not intending to debate, but just to give another view: In a “masterclass” in other arts, the student would be required to have a certain level of self sufficiency in order to be able to work with the teacher directly. Paul’s goal is to make us independent independent artisans. The goal then is for us to be able to translate a vague concept into a drawing, cut list, and joinery on our own.
Paul has been teaching on Masterclasses for quite a few years now and I’ve wondered whether the most recent lessons have been intended for more advanced students who are ready to take all the detail that is in the videos and translate it themselves into a project, adjusting as needed, including even working out what dimensions they want for their space. From this perspective, there is still a huge amount of info in the videos, even without the drawings.
If you focus on the goal of _training_ us, and ask whether Masterclasses has what is needed, then please consider that there are many dozens of projects with plans. So, if you need plans to learn, you can find suitable projects that have drawings. If you just want the final object and want to build it, then you may need to face the challenge of working out the details. If that is too much, then you can use earlier lessons to help bridge the skill gap.
There really is a heavy lift in going from a concept to figuring out a cut list to figuring out what material to buy. If you are never forced to do that, you will have a gaping hole in your training. It isn’t easy, and you’re probably not going to do it until forced. Trust me, you will learn a lot doing it and it will be worth the effort.
I so love the fact that you can do all this with simple tools. Sooo many YouTubers’ shops look like manufacturing plants, they have so many expensive machines.
Lovely feedback! What you see on screen is what Paul is using to make all the furniture for his home.
Thanks Ed but my concerns have been more than just drawings. Like you I don’t need a fully dimensioned cutting list, but just a rough drawing indicating approximate dimensions and labelling of the parts would do in the introduction. I have always adapted Paul’s work to suit what I need. However, I have found this series particularly confusing as Paul clearly knows what he is doing, but the explanation that would allow following the project has been particularly poor. As I have already said, if Paul had shown the bed in his introductory video without the mattress and described the parts that would have been both easy and incredibly helpful. A lot of time has been spent in the videos on areas Paul has thoroughly covered before, but remarkably little on the novel aspects such as cutting mortises when not parallel to the edge and the making of the cauls. I have yet to have any proper response from Paul’s team, which I would have hoped for by now.
How many pieces of timber are used to make up each slat? When Paul glues them up it appears as if he is glueing alternate faces so each slat comprises two pieces, but when he cuts them to length I can see three pieces. I cannot find anywhere that he explicitly says there are three pieces to each slat. And how thick should each piece be?
I asked Paul and each slat had 3 pieces 3/16ths thick.
At 16:09 of the video shows the glue lines of the slats. There appear to be six slats, each by two elements. A few seconds later the voice-over informs hat six slats are glued together.
Personally, I don’t embark on a project before having seen all the videos to gain the global picture.
Then I look again at each video (more than once, most of the time) to see/listen to how it is precisely done and catch what knacks are used.
So I don’t have anymore to ask myself what Paul is intending to do.
I look again the corresponding video before doing any phase.
It is also worth looking again, after, to see what one has missed.
Yes Sven. Katrina has now clarified that each laminate is made of three strips so the overall thickness is 9/16ths. Paul’s also says that he didn’t cut the curves on the bandsaw as, even though this would be a lot less work, he thought they would lack strength. I’m slightly surprised at this as we now know they are over 1/2” thick and are not structural, so surely should be strong enough to take the weight of someone leaning back on them. Some curved strips I have on the back of my dining chairs are 1/2” thick and are clearly strong enough. So I would be tempted to have a go at make these pieces as one.
From 12:19 there are comments on the relation of number of strips and the risk for spring-back (shape retention).
But, are the slats on your chairs bent or cut from the bulk? There is a huge difference. If bent, then the fibers run roughly parallel to the curved edges of the slats, but if cut from the bulk, then fibers end at the edges of the curves and this weakens them considerably. Said differently, the slats on your chair will bend under load, but ones cut from the bulk may simply break. This is why some chair components were riven. Even more than bending, riving ensures that as many fibers as possible flow along the length of the component, increasing strength.