Thread: 1st big project

All I have posted on here is band saw boxes, so I thought I would see what ya’ll think of my 1st large project.

I started this crib about 6 months ago, and finished it about 1 week after my 1st grand-daughter was born. I wanted her to have something no one else had. So I went a little overboard with the design. I wanted to make something that did not have any metal in it anywhere. Thought a knock down would be best to do. For the ends I used Black Walnut for the frame and legs and the raised panels are White Oak. On the bottom sides it is Black Walnut for the frame again, and the weaves have a combination of White Oak, Eastern Red Cedar, Pecan, Black Walnut, Cypress and 1 strip of Pupleheart. Each of the strips were 3/32”, woven together then glued to a square piece of Birch plywood. The top of the side is also a mixture of White Oak, Eastern Red Cedar, Pecan, Black Walnut, and Cypress. This was the one trickiest part of all of it, because again I wanted a weave look, so lots of half laps were done then it was hard to make sure all the tenons lined up with the mortises. The hinges were my 1st attempt at any type of wooden hinge. Made of White Oak and doweled to the frames. The latch is a Purpleheart dowel with a Oak dowel drilled in to it. The slates for the bottom were made of Black Walnut and Cypress, with the pins of the same, just switched around to show contrast. The finish is 2 coats of Danish oil.

There were all kinds of issues that happen along the way, some of the weave pieces broke when I was weaving them. Had to cut a new top rail, because when trying fit all the tenons in the mortises, they did not all line up right so it broke the rail in half in the dry fit. To fix, I tweaked the half laps so the line up would be better. When cutting the bottom slats mortises made one of the outside a 3” mortise instead of 2” like the rest, so decided to make the all outside one’s 3” and the rest 2” long. But I learn a whole bunch from this and now cannot wait to start on the next project, but have to wait till the weather here warms up a little. It has been freezing cold one day and warm the next, and since I don’t have a shed to work in all my woodworking is done on the back porch.

Please let me know what ya’ll think.