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Ash bed WIP - Finished!

This is where we don't want anything but evidence of your finest wood butchering in all its glorious, and photograph laden glory. Bring your finished products or WIP's, we love them all, so long as there's pictures, and plenty of 'em!

Re: Ash bed WIP

Postby Stuart » 18 Apr 2022, 10:05

I'm another who enjoys your work and write ups Andy.

Please don't do what I did and carefully mark up pre-numbered slats only to cut the numbers off during the process! Getting it back together again was 'fun'!
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Re: Ash bed WIP

Postby AndyT » 18 Apr 2022, 16:56

Thanks all for the nice comments.

When I was planning this project, I didn't really know what it would be like doing all the repetitions, on 30 slats with m&ts at each end. In practice, it's been rather pleasant. Like eating one chocolate from the box, then another, then another.

It does force me to tidy up though - if only to fit everything on the bench - which encourages me to be more orderly and systematic than my default settings.

Stuart, you're dead right about numbering everything, and part of my routine is to transfer the numbers onto the freshly trimmed ends as soon as each one is cut. That's with dashes either side of the number if it's at the base. And all in the same orientation.

When not being worked on, the slats stay in three stacks of five. I really don't want to make mistakes! (Really attentive readers may have spotted that slat no 7 is a bit short to go in the middle - its tenon will be more like 3/8" than 1/2". I'm hoping to get away with it!)

And Mike, you're right about bench hooks. I'd seen descriptions, and a Roy Underhill video about old style hooks but not seen the reason for that design until you pointed it out. Time to break free from the design they gave us at school and have a choice for different sizes of board and different operations.
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Re: Ash bed WIP

Postby Woodbloke » 18 Apr 2022, 17:05

AndyT wrote:And Mike, you're right about bench hooks. I'd seen descriptions, and a Roy Underhill video about old style hooks but not seen the reason for that design until you pointed it out.


These from WH are just the very thing Andy and very reasonably priced too :lol: - Rob
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Re: Ash bed WIP

Postby AndyT » 18 Apr 2022, 17:08

Woodbloke wrote:
AndyT wrote:And Mike, you're right about bench hooks. I'd seen descriptions, and a Roy Underhill video about old style hooks but not seen the reason for that design until you pointed it out.



These from WH are just the very thing Andy and very reasonably priced too :lol: - Rob



I'd be looking round for some gash chipboard to protect them if I paid that much! :D
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Re: Ash bed WIP

Postby Andy Kev. » 19 Apr 2022, 06:16

You'd need a laser beam too for doing the actual cutting because you wouldn't want to lay anything as crude as a saw into those lovely mitre grooves.
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Re: Ash bed WIP

Postby AndyT » 19 Apr 2022, 17:25

Well, I seem to be going at laser speed without needing to buy one!
Some more free time today meant a chance to make some more progress. It's much the same as you saw before...

Having cut all the easy square mortises in the head end lower rail, it was an easy job to cut all the matching tenons. This lot took just a leisurely-paced morning. I cut them in five batches of three, marking, sawing, paring, fitting.

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There's more to do to all of them - all the arrises need to be chamfered and there are pencil marks to be planed/scraped/sanded away - but buoyed up by progress I decided to have a quick dry run to see if these could all be fitted together.

It soon became clear that wrestling the curved rail onto the tops of what you see in this picture was not going to be possible at all - it was all just too uncontrolled. I dismantled the bottom rail, had a bit of a tidy up, and tried a different tack.

I thought that if I laid it flat on the bench, with some thin bits to lift the slats into position, and assembled the top first, I'd have a better chance.

This shows an early stage. I'd pushed in the first two tenons at the right hand end and put a clamp over, just to stop them opening up again.

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I could then work my way along, towards the camera, easing each tenon into place. (It helped that I had chamfered all the ends with a chisel before starting.) There were blocks clamped to the bench, so I could give the bottom rail a thump to encourage it into position.

To get everything to tighten up needed a couple of proper sash cramps, as seen here.

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This was all rather encouraging. I had a strong, stable structure with tidy enough joints.

I decided to check if the legs would still fit. They did!

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I've decided not to taper the legs, but they do still need trimming to length. However, it's handy to have the extra ends to mallet against when messing about like this, which is why they are still oversize.

Getting the bits apart again was much harder than putting them together. I don't have any cramps that are designed to work as spreaders, not on this scale. However, I found that the bigger heads on my other, heavier cramps (Record 136, with the T-shaped beams) have just enough spare metal to allow them to push as a spreader. Phew!

When it comes to the real glue-up, I am thinking that there's no point in messing about trying to glue all the slats, unless anyone can think of a good reason that has passed me by.

With that excitement over, there was still time to saw and plane the fancy curve on the top rail for the foot end. I sawed it with a simple turning saw, same as before, but a bit closer to the line. And then I planed it with the compass plane. Plenty of checking, turning around, feeling for bumps etc. All done with fine shavings so as to be ready to stop when I get to the line without any tear out.

That'll do for now. :)

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Re: Ash bed WIP

Postby Cabinetman » 19 Apr 2022, 18:09

Now you see Andy, if you had done slack Alice joints like the rest of us it would’ve gone together so much easier and you wouldn’t be worried about having the time to put glue on all the joints – which I would by the way, I suppose wood movement will be consistent across the grain so they shouldn’t come loose but it would be very annoying in the future for them to rattle ;) Ian
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Re: Ash bed WIP

Postby AndyT » 13 Jul 2022, 16:03

I'm back!

After a gap of not quite three months, for holidays, family stuff and other non-woodworking activities, I have been heeding government advice and sheltering from all that dangerous radiation round about us. The safest place I can find is my basement ̶p̶l̶a̶y̶r̶o̶o̶m̶ workshop where it's a perfectly comfortable and safe 23 degrees, so I have spent a few happy hours down there.

There's not much to show for it yet, and I haven't taken nearly as many photos, but I have made a start on fitting the fifteen little vertical slats for the foot end, into their horizontal rails. At the top, where the underside of the horizontal is curved, this means scribing and trimming the shoulders to match the curve, as already shown for the head end of the bed.

Here you can see me paring the ends and sides of the mortises, where I bored three holes for each one, using an assortment of sharp chisels and a little jig made up for the purpose. This is slower than ordinary mortising but seems to me to make sense for getting everything parallel and fitted.

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Have you ever noticed how macro shots blown up on a decent sized monitor show up every little whisker and inaccuracy? :(

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But they fit, well enough to satisfy the customers anyway. Soon I had this:

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and not very many hours later, this:

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and all the joints slide in with hand pressure but don't drop out, which is encouraging. I had to remake one slat which had twisted while it was waiting for me, which in retrospect I should have anticipated as the grain is a bit wayward. Fortunately I had a spare bit to replace it with.

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I need to decide fairly soon how much to soften/chamfer the edges of these slats. I think it makes sense to do that just before assembly and pre-finish them all as well; that will be easier than getting any finish round afterwards with no drips, runs or missed places.

Actually, there's quite a lot to do before then. I've not touched the long side rails yet, or cut mortises in the legs for them, or decided the details of the fixings. I'll be using cross-bolts, long socket-headed screws and some cunning cover-ups, but need to get the right size bits ordered first.

So, be assured that this project is not forgotten. I'll add updates in more detail when I have anything new to show. Meanwhile, it's more of this at the other end:

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which will be followed by some careful clamping, marking out and cutting individually matched joints. Fortunately, I'm still enjoying it!
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Re: Ash bed WIP

Postby AJB Temple » 13 Jul 2022, 16:29

Nice neat work. Soon be finished.
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Re: Ash bed WIP

Postby AndyT » 13 Jul 2022, 16:42

AJB Temple wrote:Nice neat work. Soon be finished.


Thanks!

And fortunately the clients are very patient... ;)
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Re: Ash bed WIP

Postby Dr.Al » 13 Jul 2022, 18:44

Wow, has it really been three months?!

Looking good and great to see it moving on again.
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Re: Ash bed WIP

Postby NickM » 13 Jul 2022, 21:07

Yes looking very good. It’s too hot to sleep at the moment so you don’t really need a bed at the moment anyway!
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Re: Ash bed WIP

Postby AndyT » 17 Jul 2022, 18:44

I've been spending quite a bit of time in the basement in the last few days...

While trimming tenons to fit their mortises, I developed a reasonable routine. It included quite a bit of careful paring across the grain, with a chisel flat on the work. I did most of this in what I think is a carver's way of working, with the chisel held in both hands, one pushing it forwards, the other stopping it from moving too far, too fast, or in the wrong direction. Difficult to photograph, but using the timer function I had a go. Like this:

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To get control, my right hand is wrapped around the blade, up close, near the cutting edge.

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There's not much of the handle that I can reach, but what I realised was that I was preferring one chisel above the others, where my little finger could wrap tightly around a narrow bit of the handle, like this (I've uncurled my grip to show this):

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This is the chisel in question:

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It's a perfectly ordinary old chisel, with one of the commonest patterns of handle, listed in catalogues simply as "round". It's marked (rather badly) F. WOODCOCK SHEFFIELD with a fragment of a logo. The company started by James Woodcock goes back a long way, but this mark puts my chisel at having been made some time between 1915 and 1957. It would have been individually forged (probably with a powered hammer) and doesn't have the distinctive round neck of later twentieth century chisels.

I really like the fineness of the edges, where proper bevels have been ground, but for this particular job it's the skinny bit of the handle which makes it so nice to use. It's all just the right size for my hands.

I compared it in use with other chisels with different shaped handles or longer blades, but came back to this one. This is one of the reasons why I like old tools and having a variety of different ones to explore. Finding that overlooked features can make a little, but welcome, difference.

I have other chisels with this shape handle, and even some gouges bought new in the 1980s which have it. Very common, very ordinary - but I suggest that it's worth making sure you have one or two in your toolkit.

Anyway, all that trimming got me to this stage

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which is encouraging, but nowhere near finished. I want to do a lot of easing of the joints (so there's room for glue), trim the legs to length, round or chamfer all the arrises, pre-finish the vertical slats, sort out the mortises for the long horizontal rails and the cross-bolts to hold them in place... the list goes on.

I'll be back soon with more detailed planning and progress, weather permitting ;)
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Re: Ash bed WIP

Postby Pete Maddex » 17 Jul 2022, 21:06

I have a few woodcock chisels and my favourite one is more like a pairing chisel it is very thin almost like it’s a warn down or been snapped off and reshapened.


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Re: Ash bed WIP

Postby Cabinetman » 18 Jul 2022, 01:13

Looking very neat Andy, what decoration if any are you doing on the leg tops, I always like to plane the flat that’s left with a super sharp very fine plane to put a shine on the end grain. Ian
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Re: Ash bed WIP

Postby AndyT » 18 Jul 2022, 07:13

Cabinetman wrote:Looking very neat Andy, what decoration if any are you doing on the leg tops, I always like to plane the flat that’s left with a super sharp very fine plane to put a shine on the end grain. Ian


The plan is to have a board, laid flat covering the tops of the legs and the top edge of the horizontal rail. This will be quite wide, chamfered underneath.
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Re: Ash bed WIP

Postby AndyT » 18 Jul 2022, 07:18

Pete Maddex wrote:I have a few woodcock chisels and my favourite one is more like a pairing chisel it is very thin almost like it’s a warn down or been snapped off and reshapened. Pete


It's impressive how skilled the old Sheffield grinders were. According to descriptions by people like Ashley Iles and Ken Hawley, they worked without jigs or tooling, getting their results by eye and skill. This meant that they could swap from one size or style to another, according to what was being ordered, without delay. That enabled manufacturers to offer a much wider range of patterns and sizes than we'd see today.
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Re: Ash bed WIP

Postby Woodbloke » 18 Jul 2022, 08:45

AndyT wrote: I want to do a lot of easing of the joints (so there's room for glue)


This is something I don't understand Andy; there's no need to 'ease' any joints. All you need is a layer of glue that's a molecule thick between two surfaces and it'll do the job. If you really do feel that a joint(s) is too tight, I'd advise planishing the tenon with a hammer to squish the fibres down a fraction; as soon as the glue hits it it'll expand again and you'll have a really tight joint.

Apparently, this is the reason that one surface of a Japanese 'geno' hammer is slightly convex as it's meant for this very purpose - Rob
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Re: Ash bed WIP

Postby AndyT » 18 Jul 2022, 08:54

Thanks for picking up on that Rob. I guess I was merging two thoughts. One issue is that although the joints slide ok at both ends of the slats when assembled separately, there's a bit of tightness on some when constrained at the opposite end.

The other thing is my worry that when I apply the water based glue, it will swell the wood slightly. I think this happened on a bookcase build once. The joints were ok dry, but getting everything together at once needed a degree of panic and bigger hammers than planned.

So the idea of hammering the tenons does appeal, or perhaps I should add hot water to raise the grain, then pare back?
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Re: Ash bed WIP

Postby Sheffield Tony » 18 Jul 2022, 08:59

I guess it might depend on what glue you plan to use ? The liquid hide glue seems to allow parts to slip together nicely. Titebond 3 for me seemed to make the wood swell before it was assembled leaving a fraught job to assemble. Particularly bad if - as Andy has here - you have a lot of pieces to glue / manoeuver into position in one go.

Looking good Andy.
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Re: Ash bed WIP

Postby AndyT » 18 Jul 2022, 09:09

Definitely the liquid hide glue, for the longer open time. But that's what I used on the troublesome bookcase too.
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Re: Ash bed WIP

Postby Woodbloke » 18 Jul 2022, 10:35

AndyT wrote:... a degree of panic and bigger hammers than planned.

So the idea of hammering the tenons does appeal, or perhaps I should add hot water to raise the grain, then pare back?

Try hammering the tenon on a gash joint Andy; it's really surprising how much it can be squished and once the glue is applied, it'll expand again. If you're after the ultimate 'tapometer' then these:

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...come very highly recommended. SWIMBO bought me this a while back and it was as cheap as the proverbial chips (about a tenner, possibly a tad more). A favourite tool of the late and very great Alan Peters and if it was good enough for him, it's good enough for a chosen spot in anybody's 'shop :D - Rob

Edit - somewhere on my InstaG page there's a video of a Japanese geno hammer squishing a tenon!
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Re: Ash bed WIP

Postby Steve Maskery » 18 Jul 2022, 23:21

Andy, I am in awe of your hand skills. I have a TUIT bed in my head. Been there for the last decade or so, not a million miles away from your design. But one of the many reasons that it has never been realised is the difficulty of making the curved shoulders of the M&T joints perfect. The temptation is to keep the underside of the top rail straight and just have the curve on the top, but yours is much more elegant, and a lot harder, to boot. :eusa-clap: :eusa-clap:
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Re: Ash bed WIP

Postby AndyT » 19 Jul 2022, 14:35

Don't worry Rob, I have a "selection" of hammers in different styles and sizes ;)

And Steve, it's very nice of you to say that, but there are lots more opportunities for errors before I can say it's finished... My last workshop session consisted of writing out a lengthy list of operations to do to the ends, before I move on to anything else. The order will get a bit critical when I have to dismantle the old bed to get access to parts that are going to be re-used... I'd like to minimise the length of time when we just have a mattress on the floor, especially as final assembly can only be done in the bedroom - there's not a big enough space anywhere else in the house.
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Re: Ash bed WIP

Postby GarF » 19 Jul 2022, 18:41

I also have been at the pre-contemplative stage of a bed build for longer than I'd care to admit. This is setting the bar dangerously high for my liking.

I've seen folk using parallel jawed tools like stilson's or those fancy knipex ones to crush tenons a smidge. I'm not sure I have the dexterity to do it with a hammer (perhaps I need another hammer!)

I once did a similar glue up on a garden bench. I was using PU glue because it was an outdoor thing and so got the benefit of lubricating the joints and long open time, but the cleanup wasn't half tedious and I was worried that the foam would defeat my clamping arrangements. When I replace the bench I will probably use epoxy- best of both, but perhaps not in this heat.
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