First furniture project - crib

[Billy Trinh]

As I was expecting a baby late December. I started to look at "gearing up" the baby room around May. Not sure where I get the idea that it would be cool to build a crib for my first baby. I began to look for crib plans but found that there weren't many available and they didn't look very appealing. Then I found this. I figured it's better to follow some design for a first project.


Showed it to my wife and it passed the WAF with flying color. I got the green light to start. I figured that there are 5 parts, should take at most couple weeks. Well it probably did take couple weeks working on the crib itself, but 6 months to finished due to "shop detours". The first 3/4 of the crib took 6 months, the last 1/4 took a few hours for 4 days while the baby is in the hospital because Santa came early this year. I started with with a circular saw and guided rails, shop vac and a makeshift cutting table and ended with mostly a basic functional workshop with router, planes, chisels, saws, tons of clamps, etc. Most of which I haven't really used on the crib project itself. Here are some shots during the journey. Pretty much every steps/technique/tools is done for the first time ever. I spent more time thinking about how to do certain things than actually doing it. It was a great learning experience.

Wood consisted of 1 sheet BORG birch for panels, .5x6x36 oak ripped for rails, 1x4x8' pine boards ripped to pieces for bed support.

Power tools involved in the making
guided circular saw
router + homemade router table
sander
jig saw
drill

First, needed to work out the dimensions. Fractional algebra came in handy to figure out the approximate size of pieces from the image.



Ripped the 6x36 into 1 1/4 rails as HD didn't have any other 1/2" thick with long enough length. Just enough width for 4 rails per board


Round over rails with multi profile bit with a homemade jig. Had to make some hardboard fence to cover up the huge bit. Worked out pretty well


Making mortises for long rails. The garage smelled burnt wood for almost a week from all the mortises. I should have done multiple passes but that would take too long for all the slots, plunged for 1/4" and just go at it one pass for each hole. The bit whines and got pretty hot after a few mortises


Cleanup saw marks


Making pocket holes for mattress support bars after ripping to width from 1x4x8' pine


No glue mess

[Billy Trinh]

mattress support and rails ready for finishing


Rails prepped and ready for stain (Olde Maple)


$15 craiglist sander. Have only always used it in this form for cleaning up small pieces


Off-setted sliding dovetail so the front side flush while maintain a reasonable thickness for the slot wall. Wife wanted the ability to lower the gate. Gotta make it work .


First "long" handsaw rip for stopped sliding dovetail mechanism


Testing out stopped sliding dovetail for the front gate. Figured it'll save a few toes in the future.


Ready for glue up. Dowel join the sliding dovetail rails unglued in case it doesn't work and i need to swap out for something else


Ready for assembly


Assembled


Side view. Tried 2 coat shellac over natural birch. Joinery is 6 connector bolts and cross dowel from Rockler. HD birch ply has horizontal streaks across the ply that are more visible after finishing.


Used the crib for a few days but decided it need some touch up. Repainted the side panels to white because we are still too young to appreciate natural finishing. Added the slots to panel while at it so wife can tie the bed set.


Final version


With bedding


New resident/Owner

[Kevin L. Pauba]

Awesome job! This is a good demonstration of your abilities with the guided saw system. Congratulations on your baby.

[Ed Peters]

excellent presentation. You obviously have the raw talent so I guess we can expect new projects to keep showing up as the little person's needs expand.
Congratulations,
Ed

[Jeff Miller]

Looks really nice and I see you saved the best picture for last




JEFF

[John Keeton]

Good build thread!! Nice design, good job copying!, and you did a super job on the construction. The ultimate consumer appears very "satisfied" with the arrangements!

[Baxter Smith]

Nice job. Great description too about how you did it. FWIW I think I heard something on the news recently about problems with sliding crib sides and how they were being discontinued? Might want to check into whatever problems there were and if your design prevents it.

Baxter

[Lee Schierer]

Great job. I made a crib for our first grandchild. The side gates became the project from heck as I broke a carbide spiral had to redo them after we actually got the mattress I had to do them all again as the plans didn't match the mattress sizes that were available.

[G. Brad Schmidt]

Truly beautiful work. Well done!

[John Thompson]

Great start on the crib build and starting a family...

[Tim Livingston]

Both of them are absolutely beautiful

[Billy Trinh]

Thanks for the good words and the FYI on sliding crib side. Found this article about the possible ban. I checked carefully for safety issues/guidelines as it's mommy's(and friends) top concern.
Crib was built to fit snuggly with the mattress I bought, nothing spiky/stringy for choke hazard, 2" space between rails, sliding side only go up and down instead of tilting hardware with 3/8 thickness on the slide/walls. Dovetailed so it wouldn't have a chance to come loose on its own (although it's already snug fit). Right now we using it at the lower level and not using sliding yet, but first sight of it not working the way I liked, i'll swap out the slider and permanently attached it to the panels.

Thanks to SMC members for various tips&tricks and tool shopping articles that I picked up along the way while trying to make it happen

[gary Zimmel]

Congrats on the new addition to your family Billy.
Looks like the little one is right at home....
Great job on the crib.
Thanks for taking the time to post the build pics.

[Doug Carpenter]

Nice job. Now there is a project with a due date! No procrastinating on that one.

[Billy Trinh]

Nice job. Now there is a project with a due date! No procrastinating on that one.

Yah, it's one of those when the boss say 'i want it now' and you just have to comply