Bunk bed project started - sort of

[tfischer]

...well I got the wood purchased, does that count as started?

Found a guy off of Craigslist with some decent prices. Took a few weeks to schedule a meet up (he's from a few hours east of here) but he guaranteed the quality and the price was right. Was really happy with the quality of what I picked up. It should be beautiful once milled down.

I'll be building bunk beds based on a slightly modified version of the bed plans in Children's Furniture Projects. I actually scaled these same plans down to build a junior bed for one of the boys, plus also the matching toy box from it, both about 7 years ago. Now I'll be building two twin-size beds and bunking them (the plans allow for that, and they can be separated later on if desired).

My wife's been on me to get these built for a few years now, and has threatened IKEA if I don't get on it

[LCHIEN]

Mrs. Hobbes: Calvin, are you working on your homework yet?

Calvin: I'm starting to begin to think about working on it!

[radhak]

What wood is it? And how about some pics?
(I dunno about anybody else, but I get off on pictures of a stash of wood, particularly in preparation of a project )

I can't preach to you about projects delayed, because I'm sure I worse; but in this case, I think you should get to it - very soon, the kids will balk at sleeping on bunk beds, and if you put in that effort, you'd want them to use'm at least a couple of years!

(My youngest is only 11 and I've had to dismantle the bunk bed already. I am inferring your kids are at least 7 years old).

[tfischer]

What wood is it? And how about some pics?
(I dunno about anybody else, but I get off on pictures of a stash of wood, particularly in preparation of a project )

I can't preach to you about projects delayed, because I'm sure I worse; but in this case, I think you should get to it - very soon, the kids will balk at sleeping on bunk beds, and if you put in that effort, you'd want them to use'm at least a couple of years!

(My youngest is only 11 and I've had to dismantle the bunk bed already. I am inferring your kids are at least 7 years old).

Sure I can post a pic of the wood stash - it's black ash for the bunk beds (I also bought some walnut for misc other projects where I need a contrasting wood). Should be able to post it tomorrow if I remember

Definitely want to get these built - mostly to reclaim half my garage back At this point the boys are VERY excited to get them (they're 6 & 9 and share a room). As I noted above, when they do decide to revolt and demand that the "spare bedroom" become one of theirs, they will we built to become standard twin beds as well (basically you have 2 taller headboards and two shorter footboards, and when you bunk them, you put the shorter ones on top and use the taller ones on the bottom).

[Richard in Smithville]

My wife's been on me to get these built for a few years now, and has threatened IKEA if I don't get on it

Almost sprayed the keyboard reading this line!

[tfischer]

OK as requested here's a couple of pics of the black ash stash for this project. I'm thinking the grain is going to be really pretty once it's milled and finished.

Hopefully I'll have some actual "in progress" photos to post soon, but this will be competing with the usual spring yard work activities like getting the garden ready to plant... Stupid late winter lol

-Tim

EDIT: For some reason the 2nd pic (a close-up of the grain) keeps erring out. Oh well.

[tfischer]

I actually started on this last night and worked one it a lot this afternoon. I got most of the stock milled for the headboards and footboards (4 total since it's 2 beds). Here's an updated pic of the lumber stash, now with a bunch of milled parts (they're the correct thickness and width but still cut to rough length) and a big pile of cut off scrap that I'm trying to decide if I should keep or toss (it would make good edge banding )

[gerti]

Nice beginning! While guilty of hanging on to almost anything, these thin strips have come in handy many of times. I used them as edge banding (as you suggested) on shop furniture, as guides to draw large radii, stakes, a couple duct-taped together to shove down a sewer vet to make sure nothing was blocking, and a few weeks ago I used one as a lamp: glued a strip of LED lights on it and suspended it from a single hook. One end touches a window frame which is where I sneaked the wire off. Looks kind of odd, but my wife loves it and it make pretty nice light.

[tfischer]

OK here's some more in-progress pictures. Worked on the leg mortices over the weekend, and worked on the slat mortices tonight (was busy all day yesterday). The upper rails for both the headboards and footboards have a pattern of 6 holes (this matches some of the boy's current furniture) and got that done tonight. Then I rounded over all the edges (didn't get an after pic of that). Next I need to start working on the tenons and dry-fit everything... that always makes me very nervous, especially with this many things that need to be precisely fit together.

[tfischer]

Tonight's task was working on the rail tenons for the headboards and footboard. In the first picture, the upper rails are done, and the lower rails (to the left) are partially cut. When I built my son's junior bed I used a dado stack to cut the tenons. This time I used a homemade tenoning jig that I built last week from these plans: https://www.finewoodworking.com/work...oning-jig.aspx. Both methods worked well.

Once the tenons were cut, I did a quick dry-fit as a sanity check, as shown in the second pic. Still needs a little adjustment but they fit pretty well. Next up are the tenons on the slats that fill the space between the upper and lower rail.

[LCHIEN]

those holes decorative? Looks like they are.
Before you glue-assemble it you might consider a roundover of both side of the hole with a small radius bit. Easy to do on a router table with a bearing bit, quickly. Might make it look nicely finished and maybe a bit softer. They look to be 1-1/2 inches or maybe 1-1/4 dia? Suggest a roundover of 3/16ths or maybe 1/8 or 1/4" depending upon your taste.

[atgcpaul]

Looking good.

Who gets the top bunk? I've never slept on the top bunk except on the Amtrak auto train. Not for me.

[tfischer]

those holes decorative? Looks like they are.
Before you glue-assemble it you might consider a roundover of both side of the hole with a small radius bit. Easy to do on a router table with a bearing bit, quickly. Might make it look nicely finished and maybe a bit softer. They look to be 1-1/2 inches or maybe 1-1/4 dia? Suggest a roundover of 3/16ths or maybe 1/8 or 1/4" depending upon your taste.

It's hard to tell from the pic but they actually are rounded over already - 1/8" radius. If I had left one of them not rounded over,the difference would be obvious.

Yep, the holes are purely decorative. Several pieces from the "Children's Furniture Projects" book which this is based off of use that motif, including the toy box I built for the boys a number of years back.

As an aside, in doing the round-overs, I discovered that MLCS screwed up when I bought my 66-piece router bit set about 5 years ago... instead of getting a 1/8" roundover bit, I have two 1/8" chamfer bits, but oddly they're slightly different. Luckily I still have my former set of 1/4" shank bits that I always intended to sell after getting the bigger 1/2" shank set so I used that. Evidently this is the first time I needed that bit

-Tim

[tfischer]

Looking good.

Who gets the top bunk? I've never slept on the top bunk except on the Amtrak auto train. Not for me.

The boys are actually arguing over that already (both want it). We'll probably have to have them time-share lol.

[tfischer]

More progress over the weekend, even though I've been pretty busy with other things too.

First I had to do all the tenons on the headboard/footboard slats, which, since there are plenty of them, took awhile. Considering I'm relatively green at mortise & tenon joinery it went pretty smoothly.

Next was the somewhat monumental job of pre-assembly sanding everything. I enlisted my oldest son (who is the recipient of one of the beds) to help with this task, and he actually did much of the work himself while I guided him and worked on some other things. He did a great job, sanding everything through two grits.

And finally I was able to do the first actual assembly for the project, headboard "A". I only have one set of long clamps so Il have to wait until this sets up to glue up the rest. But "headboard B" has been dry-fit, adjusted, and is on-deck awaiting glue.