Project Assistance

I’m currently on my first real project from a woodworking sense. I’ve built a lot of stuff in MDF, melamine treated pine etc.

My project is a baby cradle out of Sassafras and I’m looking for some help. The sides of the cradle have 15 mortised and tenon slats. Can anyone advise with the following:

As Sassafras is pretty soft wood, what grade sandpaper should I go up and finish with. At present all faces have been given an 80 grit going over with the ROS. I did this while the wood was in slab length and the right thickness.

Is it possible to over sand soft wood, in other words how much is enough. My thoughts are that the softer the wood the deeper the grit penetration therefore more sanding might be needed.

Do I need to put on a sealing coat before sanding. I’m probably going to finish with a polyurethane.

Given that the sides have 30 joints each, what glue would you recommend, I’m assuming it needs a slow setting glue to allow time to position the pieces. The glue also needs to be easy to clean up.

What is the best way to avoid glue marks give the number of joints and their size. (Slats are 10mm x 20mm). Will a damp cloth clean it up sufficiently.

I have seen the use of tape to minimise glue marks, will this help or hinder, the sides all fit together nicely as a dry fit, so adding tape should be fairly straight forward, but is it necessary.

Sorry for posting so many questions at once, thought it was best to get them all out there. The cradle might be a bit ambitious for a first attempt, it is for our first grand child to be. It would be a pity to make a good looking cradle and then stuff it up by poor finishing.

Your help will be much appreciated.

Hi and Welcome to the Forum.


30 joints??? Any possibility of posting a picture?

cheers
RufflyRustic

You need to go through the sanding grades. 80 grit is too harsh. Go to 150 , 180, 240, 320 and end up at least 400. Then give it a dust using a tack cloth or damp turps rag. Buy some Minwax Wipe-on Ploy from Bunnings and give it a few coats. Because you wipe it on, it's easy to get in all those hard places which means you can put it on after assembly and it doesn't run because it's a thin coat. After 3 oor 4 coats, give it a very light sand (400 or 800 if you have it) and then wipe on a final coat. Trust me, this is very easy to apply and looks a whole lot better than brushed on estapol etc.

Hi Rustic,

No problems, here are a few pictures, they are just dry fitted at present.

Hey, that's looking quite good. Keep posting the pics until your finished. It is always good to see a work in progress.

Cheers

Kris

Wow - great work! How did you cut the Mortise and Tenon joints? Mortiser Drill Press or rounter, etc?

Gumby's advice is very sound. I just wish I had the patience (and all that sandpaper) to sand through all the grits on some of my pieces.

It's getting harder to get good quality sandpaper at a reasonable price.

Keep the pictures coming. Can't wait to see the fininshed cradle.
Cheers
RufflyRustic

I cut the mortises on my new Delta machine, well worth the investment. The tenons were made with my home made jig. Took a bit of making but again it was well worth it, I also used two blades with a spacer to cut the tenons with one pass, although I'm now not totally convinced it is the best way to go. I seem to get different results with different wood types, I will probably go with single blade from now on.

I might post some observations on the jigs forum.

Hi Rustic,

Here are some more pics of the cradle in progress. Got a lot of sanding to do, the sides are finished, but I'm going to give it a coat of sanding sealer.

Wow Stubchain, that is an amazing piece of work, the sas looks great, i really want to redo all my loungeroom furniture usiing SAS, what is it like to work with.
You have done a great job, is the cradle for you or a family member?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by The Hornet

Wow Stubchain, that is an amazing piece of work, the sas looks great, i really want to redo all my loungeroom furniture usiing SAS, what is it like to work with.
You have done a great job, is the cradle for you or a family member?

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Are you suggesting someone is in their dotage?

Nice work hope the little one appreciates it.

Stubchain - a dumb question. I'm an old f*rt who can't work computers to save himself. I've been trying half the day reading through pages of stuff about loading photos, but none of it makes sense to me. (like, save the .jpg at 72 dpi...huh!) But my Mac has iphoto and I've noticed it creates thumbnails. I went into thumbnails "help", but nothing explained how to take the image as a thumbnail from my desktop or photo gallery into a forum post or e-mail.

So how DID you attach those thumb nails ???????

Sorry to bother you with this, but I really need some pointers....

Richard

Richard just save your picy, download a program like photo resizer or irfanview (not sure with mac what works) use the program to reset the size of your image. Then when you post a reply or write a message scroll down to additional options , attach file ,then find & attach your image when you press submit it automaticly turns it into a thumbnail.
Hope thats as clear as mud. :rolleyes:
Neal

Richard is right about the pictures. All I do is take the picture, resize it with Microsoft’s image resizer (set to medium) then attach with the forums manage attachments wizard. Not sure how to do it with a Mac though, it should not be too different.

Hornet – The Sassafras has been a joy to work with, it is pretty soft however and I’m not sure if it would be suitable for everyday furniture, it might if it was coated with a really hard finish. I’m using blackheart sassafras but had it selected so that it was fairly light without the dark bits, although the legs will have some darkness in them. It’s for my daughter, she is expecting our first grandchild. She also does not want the cradle to swing, so it is going to fixed.

I glued up the side panels over the weekend, I must say it went a lot easier than I thought it was going to be, have very little glue to clean up. It is finished with 400 grit, the grain has raised a bit where I used a damp cloth to get rid of some glue, but it is not too bad. Like I said earlier this is my first “real” project so I’m still feeling my way. The curved bits on the end panels were pretty hard to do without a spindle sander. The convex curves were OK using my Ryobi 150 disk/belt sander, but keeping the concave curves square was near impossible using the belt, I finished it off with a half round course file.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Richardwoodhead

Stubchain - a dumb question. I'm an old f*rt who can't work computers to save himself. I've been trying half the day reading through pages of stuff about loading photos, but none of it makes sense to me. (like, save the .jpg at 72 dpi...huh!) But my Mac has iphoto and I've noticed it creates thumbnails. I went into thumbnails "help", but nothing explained how to take the image as a thumbnail from my desktop or photo gallery into a forum post or e-mail.

So how DID you attach those thumb nails ???????

Sorry to bother you with this, but I really need some pointers....

Richard

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Send a PM to Bitingmidge, he is the Mac expert on this forum. He will set you straight.

Richard,

I've sent you a PM, I'll put some instructions together for you step by step!

Regards,

P