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| by:
Steven Maxwell
photos: Simon Cheung
illustrations: Len Churchill |
UNDER CONSTRUCTION |
| Fine
furniture from construction-grade lumber |
Time was in short supply for me earlier this year, as an impending
new baby meant our two boys had to move into the same bedroom.
That's why I tried to buy a bunk bed, although without any success.
I couldn't find anything I liked enough to spend money on. I
couldn't even find a design I wanted to copy. And besides, what
kind of a woodworker buys a bed? So after a few spirited design
discussions with my wife, and half a dozen crumpled scale drawings,
a plan emerged. After building the bed, and tucking our boys
in it for more than four months, there's not much I'd change.
I recommend this plan with confidence.
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| Katherine,
6, sneaks up to her brother's top bunk while Joseph,
2, stakes his claim to the bottom bunk |
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People who see the bed are surprised to learn it's made almost
entirely from construction-grade 2 x 10s. There's beautiful
wood bound for use in house frames, and you'll save money by
redirecting the best of it into your workshop, air drying it
and turning it into furniture. The cost of doing business with
this under-appreciated material is access to a jointer, thickness
planer and tablesaw. You can't build this project without these
machines, so don't even try. For more on selecting and drying
construction-grade wood, see the sidebar "Fine
Furniture From Cheap Wood".
Start by sorting through the
pile of 2 x 10s you carefully selected at the lumberyard, choosing
the best for panels, side rails, legs and leg caps. Rough-cut
these longer and wider than needed, then stack them with spacers
between the layers to promote drying. This is called stickering
and you'll be doing it throughout the building process. Don't
plane or joint any of these parts yet and be especially generous
when roughing out the layers of wood you'll need for the legs.
You'll want to leave lots of extra width for jointing after
lamination. Make each leg layer 4 1/2" wide at this stage. You'll
need this extra width because the legs are long, so it can take
many passes across the jointer to get all three layers even
and square.
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| Start With The Panels |
Since construction-grade wood needs time to dry while you're
building, I'll lead you through the preparation of parts in
stages. Moving from one group of parts to another as you work
allows wood to cup and twist (as it inevitably will) while you
still have the opportunity to do something about it.
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| Variations
of the tudor rose are all over my house. Although
the spruce is strong, it proved difficult to slice
cleanly. Consider white pine or basswood for carving |
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The panels are a prominent part of the bed, so choose and combine
grain patterns with care. This is where artistry comes in. Since
the finished panels are about 3/8" thick, you can easily get
two panel parts by splitting 1 1/2" lumber down the middle,
on edge. This leaves lots of extra wood for jointing and planing
operations. If you don't have a bandsaw, rip the panel parts
no wider than 4", then slice them in half, on edge, in two passes
across your tablesaw. Splitting thick stock like this naturally
reveals striking book-matched grain patterns on matching parts.
This is good stuff, so make the most of it.
Next, spend time at the workbench
arranging panel parts so they look their best. Mark the location
of neighbouring pieces, then set them aside to dry for at least
three or four days before jointing and edge gluing. Thin, newly
split pieces like these tend to cup as they dry, so you'll want
to let that happen before jointing. I designed the completed
panels to be less than 12" wide so they could be milled in any
benchtop thickness planer after lamination. Set the panel parts
aside for now.
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| Bags And Bags Of Shavings |
Most of the bunk bed parts are 1 1/8" thick, meaning you'll
have to spend hours working with your planer to mill the 1 1/2"-thick
boards down to size. You'll save time if you rough-cut all stiles,
rails, bullnose cap strips, side rail support strips, support
boards, safety rails and ladder parts to width first, instead
of running uncut lumber through your planer, and then cutting
these parts. Joint and plane components to 1/8" thicker than
final size, then let them sit for a week with a fan blowing
on the stickered pile before milling to final thickness. Keep
the parts in separate groups so you can work on each kind in
turn.
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| Laminate The Legs |
The bunk bed legs are thick and long, making them the most troublesome
part of the project. The plans show how each leg has five parts:
three hefty internal layers, capped by two face strips that
hide the lamination lines.
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| Head
and footboard panels are made of planks sawn in
half on edge, so there's lots of bookmatched grain
pattern. Use wood with growth rings perpendicular
to the panel face |
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Divide the 12 leg layers you cut earlier into four groups: three
pieces for each leg. The idea is to arrange the layers so the
outer face of each leg looks best. Mark relative layer locations,
then joint and plane leg layers to 1 1/4"-thick and glue them
together. A few wooden hand screws tightened across the edges
of the layers will do wonders to align the parts as the main
clamps draw them together. This saves lots of jointing later.
While the leg layers are drying,
cut the leg cap strips slightly wider than listed and plane
to final 3/16" thickness. When the legs are ready to come out
of the clamps, joint and plane them to final size. Glue the
cap strips over the sides showing the lamination lines, using
as many clamps as needed for gap-free joints. Plane the excess
edging flush with the legs, sand and rout a chamfer along all
edges. The plans show how the joint line between leg and leg
cap disappears if you cut so its edge lands on the joint line.
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| Back To The Panels |
Joint one face of each panel member, then joint an edge, before
ripping each piece to wider-than-final width and jointing this
sawn edge. Keep all panel parts grouped, as you arranged them
earlier for best appearance, while dry-fitting the panel parts.
When everything looks good, edge-glue the panels, scraping off
excess glue after a few hours when it's half-hard.
As the panels are drying, joint and plane the rails and stiles
to final size, then trim to length. The plans show how the edges
of these parts require grooves to house the panel edges. These
grooves also admit floating hardwood tenons that join the panel
frames. This is why the panel grooves extend around the ends
of the rails. A wing-cutter router bit in a table-mounted router
is the best tool for cutting these grooves. Take one pass from
each side of the rail and stile parts so the grooves are centred.
Aim for a 3/8"- to 7/16"-wide groove, then plane and trim your
floating tenons for a snug fit.
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| The
corner of the underside of the top bunk, showing
mattress support boards, mattress support strip
and the bottom of the headboard where it joins the
leg |
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Dry-fit all stiles, rails and floating tenons under clamp pressure
to check for tight joints, then measure the inside dimensions
of the frame (to the bottom of the grooves) to determine the
ideal panel size. Make the panels 1/16" smaller than these measurements
and plane the panels to fit nicely within the grooves. Dry-fit
the stiles, rails and panels, then assemble the frame permanently
with glue. Give everything a day or two to dry, then joint the
outside edges of the frame parts to level and square them.
Mill the bullnose cap strips
on a table-mounted router, then fasten them to the top and bottom
edges of the assembled panel frames using 3/8" fluted dowels.
With all the parts of this project that needed dowelling, I
invested in a self-centering drilling jig to help me bore accurate
dowel holes in the panel edges and the ends of the side rails--all
parts too large to be bored on my drill press. It worked wonderfully.
When the cap strips are glued to the panel frames, run the edge
of the assembly over the jointer again, taking a light cut to
level the sides for a tight fit with the legs. Install 3/8"-fluted
dowels across the leg-to-panel joints, dry-fit under clamping
pressure, then join the legs and panel frames permanently. Cleaning
glue squeeze-out from the corner where the legs meet the panel
frames would be difficult without help. I used Waxilit, a glue
resist that looks like skin cream. Smear some across the dry-fitted
joints--when the joint is reassembled with glue the product
prevents the squeeze-out from bonding to the surface wood. The
hardened glue pops off with a chisel.
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1 | PART 2 |
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