Thread: Doll's Cradle project -- finished

It's finished and I'm about 95% + pleased with the result.

I've learned a few things -- some of which I should probably have
read about and saved the agro, but that's the way things go.

I'll expose myself to ridicule here and list some of the things
that I learned with varying degrees of pain.

When sawing with a compound mitre saw always start at the
near edge and work backwards. (OK maybe it should have been
obvious given the rotation, but I'd always used docking saws
for either cross-cut or half-check joins and the odd splinter here
and there isn't an issue with framing timber.)

The dovetalis were done with the help of a Leigh jig.

Dovetailing the head end was "interesting" since I needed to
avoid the joins in the head and side timber. I set up the jig
for each corner at the head individually so that the joins were
either in the middle of a pin or tail.

I was able to use one setup for both sides of the foot end.

I noticed in another thread someone was talking about how to
clean up the joints on the outside -- I simply used a belt sanders
sanding with the grain on the main piece of timber and making sure
that the belt was pulling into the the end since blackwood is a bit
splinter-prone.

Curves were cut with a 6mm blade in the bandsaw.

I've learned that with Titebond it's a lot easier to use a *very*
wet rag to wipe off any glue that squeezes out of the joint.
Maybe even wipe/rinse rag/wipe/wring rag dry/wipe joint to dry.
Cleaning glue on inside joins was a PITB. I finally used a
random orbital sander with soft edges to get it right. But other
glue joins that I had wiped a lot wetter were much easier.
There's some need to sand the raised grain, but that's much
less of a problem than trying to take the yellow from the
glue out.

I didn't get the rockers aligned as well as I would have liked.
I should have put the main box on end on the bench and lined
up the rocker also on the bench -- only one edge to line up
-- much easier. Isn't it great how hindsight is 20/20?

The bottom is pieces of timber joined with a biscuit jointer. I also used
biscuits on the head (2x200 mm wide) and the sides at the head (2x150 wide).
I wound up clamping the bottom to the bench as well as side to side --
it seems that multiple pieces of timber don't like to stay flat when
clamped. (The angle on the side edges didn't help) A trash bag on the
bench prevented the bottom from sticking to the bench. (It would have
been nice to have a 600mm wide thicknesser to feed the glued bottom
through, but..... $$$)

The bottom is attached to the sides with dowels -- through drilled from
the bottom after it had been attached, just to secure it. The 8 deg angle
meant that doweling then gluing it together wasn't an option. To finish
I then used a Veritas tapered plug to hide the dowels.

I should have put the bottom in the sides when I was gluing and clamping.
The sides racked just enough that the bottom didn't fit after gluing
when it had fit perfectly when I fitted it together "dry".

I think that's most of the stuff that I learned. But if the next time
can't be better what's the point?

My partner is good with a sewing machine so she added the bedding
shown in the final photo. It was a case of using scraps from her
sewing bag, so it wound up blue rather than the yellow that might
have looked better. There's a mattress, fitted sheet, flat sheet,
pillow and pillow case.

I guess the final point is that my grand-daughter likes it. And that's
what it's really about, isn't it?

Hope this useful to someone.

Cheers

-Don