Bassinet Build

[Brian AdamsMS]

A few weeks ago I asked about camfering concave corners and got a lot of great responses. Thanks for all the input and I thought I would share a little bit of one of my favorite projects to build in a very long time. Could be my favorite project because it was my first using cherry wood or because it is for my first grand-daughter (GLOAT!!!). Im pretty sure it had nothing to do with the cherry......

Anyway, here are a few pics of the build...
I did use electrons for rough dimensioning the lumber and the initial cut of all the curved pieces. After that it was a great workout with hand planes, chisels and scrapers for the curved pieces.
This is the headboard ends with a template to lay out dovetails and cut angles..
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I kept the pieces long as my dovetailing is not the greatest, easier trim excess after...
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Here is the completed bottom portion....
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Then I built the two head board assemblies...
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More to come tomorrow after I have a chance to upload the rest of pictures...

[Brian AdamsMS]

A few more pics:

Here is a pic of the top of the carriage assy during a dry fit of the parts. I should have waited to cut the dovetails on the upper portion. After installing the spindles it was a BIG PIA to get the spacing correct to align with the headboard ends.
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Here is a quick and dirty jig for drilling the spindle holes at the correct angle. First I laid out the hole centers on the top edge of the headboard bottom section and the underside of the top section. Then clamped the pieces onto my benchtop at the correct spacing for final assy and used a long straight edge to draw intersecting angles to use as drill angle guides that allign with the edge of the jig.
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More to come.....

[Brian AdamsMS]

The slats to support the mattress rest in 1/4" slots that were chiseled into the side pieces.
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And finally a one last dry fit before glue up.
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Next up will be the frame...

[Brian AdamsMS]

For the swinging frame, my first thought was to use a 4-bar linkage and create a 'glider' type mechanism that would be housed underneath the cradle and eliminate the swing arms rising above the sides. After experimenting with some crude mock-ups with pine, it proved very complex to get a substantial swing radius without the cradle passing over an acceptable center of gravity and becoming 'top heavy' or prone to tilting over. I wound up going with a traditional simple pivot at the top of cradle assy.

Here are some pics of the bottom joint. I used a haunched through mortise that created a stub tennon that intersects with the vertical piece.
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[Brian AdamsMS]

To create the pivot, I used a flat top bolt, steel spacer with an OD of 3/8", a brass shoulder bushing with a matching 3/8" ID that was epoxied into the top of the cradle. The steel spacer was cut to be about 1/4" longer than the brass bushing so that once the bolt is fully tightened it effectively locked the steel spacer to the outside frame and the brass bushing is locked to the cradle and becomes the 'bearing' of the pivot.
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And finally the complete hanging assy.
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[Chris Griggs]

Cool build Brain. Some really neat joinery there.

[Prashun Patel]

I think it's beautiful. Did you completely cut your dovetails by hand? I love paring; hate chopping.

[Mel Fulks]

Nice design .I like the exaggerated splay and curved side rails. Bassinets don't get used as much as they did in the past but they celebrate the newness and smallness of the baby and have a better chance of becoming heirlooms than those big baby beds.

[Jim Koepke]

Very nice.

jtk

[Brian AdamsMS]

I think it's beautiful. Did you completely cut your dovetails by hand? I love paring; hate chopping.

Other than the initial thicknessing of the boards and rough cutting the curves on a bandsaw, everything was done with hand tools. For the dovetails, I have a set of LN rip and crosscut dovetail saws. I cut close to the line with those and rough out the bottom with a coping saw. Then pare to the line with chisels.
Thanks for the complements!