Loft Bed

Anything that I build myself is better in both design and materials than anything I can buy.  No particle board for me; and you can keep your bamboo, jatoba, ipe, sapele, and all that other tropical stuff.  Good old American hardwoods; oak, maple, cherry; are my materials of preference.  I prefer real joinery and construction techniques that you simply cannot find in furniture from Ashley, IKEA, or anything imported from China (which these days is just about everything).

The latest project I finished is a loft bed.  The retail prices for this bed were in the $1700 range.  I am in the $300 to 400 range for building it myself.  And that includes a lighting system for the desk.  I have looked at these beds in furniture stores and they are more flimsy than I am comfortable with. 

The legs are made out of plywood.  I glued up four pieces per leg and used a hand planer to shape it up.  I used a trick I have heard of but never tried; auto bondo to fill in gaps, cracks, and wood grain.  It made a perfectly smooth edge that is difficult to achieve with just sanding.

For the side rails, I tried using FAS dimension lumber, but it ended up twisting just enough that I was not satisfied with it.  Back to the plywood; I glued up my own framing stock by gluing two pieces together and using bondo to fill the edges.

The shelves are made with plywood and dado joinery and pine for the face and trim.  The desk is made from plywood and is bolted to the shelves so that it stands on its own.  For good measure, one of the shelves is attached to the 4 x 5 legs.  The desktop and large end-shelf were supposed to line up, but I forgot about that when I was building the shelf for the second time.  The first shelf was too tall, as were the legs.  Adjusting the height on the legs was easily accomplished with a circle saw.  For the shelf, it was a do-over.

The pieces separate so they can be put to other uses should the loft bed be no longer desired.  They will probably make good furniture for a college apartment some day.  The only thing I am not satisfied with is the white paint.  I cannot seem to apply paint without leaving brush marks.  I think it is a problem that can only be solved with a 20 gallon air compressor.  Most men’s problems can usually be solved with a power tool of some sort.

Unlike what you can buy in a store, most of the hardware is hidden or designed out of this bed.  That made it more difficult to design and build, but overall, I am happy with how it looks.  The only thing I would change with some of the parts is to cut more weight out wherever possible.

Overall, I am pleased with how it turned out.  Now I've got to finish that plywood skeleton before the trick or treaters get here.

Measure twice, cut once

Sooner or later, every woodworker who blogs posts their lamentations over some project that went south due to a mistake made while holding a measuring tape.  This is that post for me, although I have to admit that on more than one occasion I have had to re-cut a piece of plywood.  I figure with my tools and a pencil, the best that I can do is 1/64 inch accuracy.  If something is 1/32 inch off, I can usually see it with my eye.  So imagine my surprise when I made shelves that were 1/16 of an inch too wide. 

That doesn’t sound like much, but this bookshelf has to fit inside the 3 by 4 inch legs of the headboard of a loft bed.  The legs are joined with a mortise and tenon joint and it is not going to move 1/16 of an inch.  So I had the joy of removing that much material from the side of my bookshelf.

I decided the punishment for the crime would be to use a hand planer to correct the situation.  That decision has the added bonus of sharpening my planer after running it through the glue used to hold plywood together.  Anyway, by the time I could go rent a power planer and take it back, I could finish the job by hand.  Smoothing, filling, and repainting my small mistake will set me back about three hours, plus an hour to sharpen my planer.

No real need to worry about the moral of the story here.  In the end, I am still making chips and dust and doing something that I enjoy.  Although doing something twice does tarnish the joy a little bit, it still beats spending time at work by a good margin.  I have to admit that sharpening a planer is not much of a punishment either.  Since I need to touch this one up, I might as well sharpen the others while I have my water stones out.

Back in the workshop

Well, actually it is a stretch to call the tool shed a workshop, but that is what I have to work with. I power the “workshop” with an extension cord from the house. You have to make sure to only use one tool at a time, or you have to go back to the house and reset the breaker. I’ll have to post a picture someday of the cramped space I refer to as the workshop.

We decided to make some cutting boards for the mothers in our lives for Christmas. I had some red maple on hand and bought some purpleheart to add color and character to the project. The maple had some curl in it, so there was real potential to make something that actually looked nice and could be used in the kitchen.

I have worked with maple for a number of years, so I know my tool’s limitations when it comes to this hard hardwood. Purpleheart was a new species for me. It is naturally purple to burgundy in color, and the pieces I bought had a lot of curly grain. Forget running a planer across this species. I used a bench sander to remove excess trim and smooth up the finished piece. The curly figure readily splintered and I had to be careful cutting and gluing the small pieces. The wood is beautiful though, and it’s worth the trouble to incorporate such color into a wood project.

Here is how they turned out…

I made the circle cutting boards on my table saw using a trick demonstrated in this video:

Make a circle on a table saw

The first one I cut out has a small hole in it, but the next two I figured out you barely need a nail holding it and the hole is barely visible as a dimple in the wood. Since these are intended for use with food, I applied mineral oil to them to protect the wood. It darkened the purpleheart, but they turned out really nice.

I tend to play it safe with oak and maple most of the time, but another woodworker told me last year that if I was going to take the time to do something, I might as well do it with wood that is beautiful or exotic in some way. Sound advice.

Miter Saw Table

In an effort to focus on something positive, I am going to add a woodworking category to this blog. Building furniture and projects is one of the ways that I keep my sanity. Although the extent that it saves mine may be the same amount that it frays my wife’s nerves. Hopefully we are achieving a workable balance.

Last year, I bought a miter saw to cut sugar maple molding for an entertainment center. I wanted something accurate to cut molding that cost $3 per foot. Of course, the saw is not much use without some way to hold the molding.

So like anything else I need help with, I went off to the internet. I found several designs for free plans and chose this design from Woodsmith.com. It is made from plywood and put together using dados. It’s about as simple as you can get for a project.

Here is a picture of the dado joinery, just like the plans show.



And here is a picture of the finished table.


I gave it a coat of Minwax stain for protection and have been using it ever since. I had this built in one afternoon and it has been getting more and more use. The back support may be too high, but so far it works and I can cut the back shorter if I need to. By the way, I did finish the entertainment center. The miter saw was quite handy when it came time to building the cabinet doors too.