Twin Canopy Bed

The task at hand was the creation of a canopy bed for my three-year-old daughter. Like most of my projects, I birthed the concept in a CAD drawing. Then, with the printouts in hand, I set to work. By Thanksgiving about half of the original 50 board feet of walnut lay glued up in stock ready for turning.

As luck would have it, a couple weeks into the project Norm appeared on the New Yankee Workshop building a canopy bed. From this episode, I derived one important element of my final bed design, and had one major fit at the way Norm approached a task. First the fit; my jaw nearly hit the floor when Norm glued up the arches as a single laminated piece and then ripped that piece in two using his Unisaw. I cannot imagine successfully guiding that long, bendy, twisty glue-up through the blade, all the while carefully keeping it stable to avoid the Mother of All Kickbacks... On to the good point, I really appreciated the idea of attaching the canopy cross members to the arches using dovetails.

Then a big hit took the project into limbo. One early morning in mid-January, I get a call from Mom and she is worried about Dad. I stop by on my way to work and he *doesn't* look all that good. He does not have a temperature, but he is very lethargic and a little confused. I agree with her assessment that she needs to call the doctor and then I head on off to work. The next time I hear from her they are at the hospital and Dad is unconscious in the grip of a nasty condition called Septic Shock. This is, by the way, *Not Good*. There is a 50% survival rate, maybe. It turns into a dark and worrisome week. Nevertheless, Dad is tough and he pulls through one more time.

The experience, however, takes the edge off my shop interest. Almost a month goes by before I wander back downstairs and return to the task.

When Norm built his bed, he precut the mortises for the headboard, footboard and side rails, and then plugged those mortises with stock. He claimed that this would help prevent tear out around the openings. I was skeptical of this, so I skipped the filling-up step.

* Lesson 1 - Precut mortises do not hinder turning, but they make sanding a challenge.

I was easily able to shape the spindles with my cutting tools despite the mortise openings. However, when it came time to sand the surface then the openings made the sanding block bounce. So, the section surrounding each mortise had to be hand-sanded. This was not a big deal, and less hassle (IMO) than filling the mortises with something or leaving the cutting of them until the end.

Of course, if you get a good cut from your tools in the first place, then there should not be a lot of sanding to perform. This leads to:

* Lesson 2 - Proper sharpening of your gouges makes the turning go much faster

Before I started this project, I sharpened my gouges by hand. With this much turning to do, it did not take long to realize that this method of work would only result in dragging out the completion of the bed to my daughters' college graduation, so I investigated how to sharpen turning tools. A grinder and buffer from Grizzly and a Wolverine jig combined to reveal to me the ignorance of my former ways. One post section had taken me an hour; now with the tools properly sharpened it took twenty minutes!

Of course, my small Delta lathe was not nearly big enough to handle a six-foot spindle in its native form. Therefore, I built them up in sections with mortise and tenons connecting the sections. The turning was easy, but getting the tenons exactly the right size was a bear.

* Lesson 3 - When making multi-part turnings, loose tenons are much easier to handle than trying to make fixed tenons exactly the right size.

At least in this case, it would have been much easier to bore a mortise in each portion and then use a loose tenon to join them. Maybe even use something like the Beall Threader and make the two parts screw together, which would add a benefit of making the whole thing break down smaller.

This was the third canopy bed I have made. First was a crib, then a toddler bed, now a twin size. (SWMBO has put in an order for a queen size someday as well.) On the crib, I cut the arches out of plywood. It was easy, and they were painted anyway so looks did not matter much. On the toddler bed I built up the arches from various pieces of stock I had lying about. Not the most brilliant decision, but again it got the job done. For this bed, I wanted a good result, not just a good-enough result. So, I gave bent lamination a try.

* Lesson 4 - Bent lamination is a lot of fun!

Despite my initial trepidation, it turned out to be a lot of fun. I created a form by laying out a piece of lath with some finishing nails and cutting out the shape with a crappy old jigsaw. I sawed the walnut into 3/32" sections, laminated nine of them together with Gorilla glue in the form. Viola, nice arches. There were problems though, leading to the next lesson:

* Lesson 5 - A smooth cut is essential to making bent lamination look good.

My band saw did not produce as smooth a cut as I hoped. The first arch had some significant roughness between layers. The polyurethane glue easily filled those spaces but in the end, one could still identify the layers of the lamination. On the second arch, I spent a little time with a block plane and smoothed the bumps, but now the removal of a "significant" amount of wood meant that the grain did not line up as perfectly as I would like. Picky, picky. All of this reveals that I need to focus on getting a better (smoother) cut from my bandsaw. Further investigation has lead to the conclusion that the primary culprit was too much wear in the Cool Blocks in the guides. I am going to try some ceramic blocks before next time. In addition, I need to check the blade. I am using a "Timberwolf" blade, but it is the Lee Valley variety, not the one by Suffolk Machine.

After reading "American Furniture of the 18th Century" by Greene I wanted to try my hand at a bit of carving, so I added a stylized half-flower to the headboard. I was a little dubious at first, but then my daughter thinks it is the coolest thing so I chalk it up as a good decision. Unfortunately, it does not show up in the photo all that well.

Finally, for a finish I tried Tung Oil for the first time, in the form of Hopes' Tung Oil Varnish. I have to say that I am very happy with it! It brought out the richness of the walnut grain, without much further darkening of an already dark wood. Moreover, it could not be any easier to use.

It is said that you will know when you are dead by the fact that there is nothing left to learn. Based on said criteria, I am very much alive.