Curly Cherry Crib(PICS)

[Duane Dennis]

In anticipation of our first baby I recently completed my latest project, a curly cherry crib. It marked a number of firsts for me, and throughout the process I was encouraged and guided by a number of woodworkers, most specifically a gentleman named John Fry.

The wood was purchased from Mike Mastin at CurlyWoods.com. I'm fortunate enough to live about 20 minutes away from there. Mike was big help to me in the selection and bookmatching of the premium curly cherry panels.

I know many of you read and post on other boards, so you might have already seen these, if so, I apologize for the rendunancy. As I've learned alot from this board, I wanted to share here as well.

You can see the whole library here:

http://www.woodworkersweb.com/modules.php?set_albumName=albup77&op=modload&name=gallery&file=index&include=view_album.php

Hope you enjoy the pics, and thanks for looking:

http://www.woodworkersweb.com/modules/gallery/albums/albup77/wholecrib4.jpg

http://www.woodworkersweb.com/modules/gallery/albums/albup77/rightpanelcloseup.jpg

http://www.woodworkersweb.com/modules/gallery/albums/albup77/panelclseup6.jpg

[Stan Smith]

Mighty Classy! I had never seen curly cherry before. It sure does catch the eye.

Stan

[Keith Starosta]

Duane,
That is absolutely beautiful! Sure to be a family heirloom for years to come!

Keith

[Alan Turner]

Great project, and great curly cherry. What was your finishing schedule on these panels? Also, what was the BF price for the CC, if you don't mind answering.
Alan

[Donnie Raines]

AAHHHHHHHH....me likes! Good looking design and the cherry is great. Keep that for your child for when they grow up...they will have a much better appreciation for it then!

DonnieR

[Tyler Howell]

Truly a family heir loom. Something to pass from generation to generation.

[Lee Schierer]

Good looking crib. It certainly is distinctive. Nice wood.

[Dick Parr]

Love that wood figure and design. Very Very Nice!

[Mark Singer]

Beautiful!!!! Work and wood...beautiful!!!

[Chris Padilla]

Curly cherry?? Wow...you don't see that too often. The bookmatching is superb...excellent work.

I will be tackling some curly maple panels soon. I'd love to hear your thoughts on working with curly wood and avoiding tearout and such.

[Terry Hatfield]

Duane,

Again I say WOW!!!!! Truly a beautiful job!!!

Terry

[Daniel Rabinovitz]

Duane
It's a beautiful crib
The cherry is gorgeous.
AND it's alot tastier to chew on than poplar. He-he! :D
Daniel

[Donnie Raines]

Curly cherry?? Wow...you don't see that too often. The bookmatching is superb...excellent work.

I will be tackling some curly maple panels soon. I'd love to hear your thoughts on working with curly wood and avoiding tearout and such.
Hope you dont mind me sharing a few thought with you working with curly wood.

I use figured stuff all the time. The bigggest trick I can think of has to do with planing the lumber. Wet the boards down prior to running them through...allow them to sit for about 10 minutes and then wipe off the excess. Then, being sure that you are feeding with the grain, skew the angle of the board as it enters into planer. These steps will reduce tear out. I have a drum sander that I use after I have planed the boards....so I cheat a little bit ;) . Also, prior to cutting the boards to lenght, with the final location in mind, hold the boards at the aprx postion it will end up on the project. Many figured boards have the holgram effect(spelling). From one angle it may look great....from another it may look plain and boring. You may need to wipe the boards down with mineral spirits prior to doing this, to preview the figure as it would appear with some degree of top coat applied. Once you have determined all this, make sure you mark the boards, and how they are to be postioned so that dont forget.

use lower grit paper to sand away any tear out or chips that may have come about during the milling of the lumber(unless you have adrum sander). Work your way about to 180 grit and then hand sand with 220. this will remove any swirl marks left by the ROS....if you decide to use dye's to draw out the figure....swirls will also pop out at you to.

DonnieR

[Chris Padilla]

Thanks, Donnie. Don't mind you sharing your thoughts at all.

I knew about the water part but didn't realize you had to leave it soaking for a few minutes. I also thought to run them at an angle through the planer, too.

Very cool...thanks for the tips.

[Bob Lasley]

Duane,

Absolutely stunning! Great design, is it your own? Mike certainly does have some fantastic woods.

Bob

[Wes Bischel]

Duane,

Definitely a heirloom piece. Just think, your great great great grandchild will be admiring your work!

FWIW you may want to check into teething rails - one morning our son disappeared and in his place was a little beaver. :rolleyes: Then a few weeks later, our son was back - with lots of teeth. Unfortunately the crib took a beating before we found a deep enough set of rails. It would be a shame to have half the crib eaten during a few weeks of teething (the rails can usually come off then).

Great job, and congratulations!

Wes

[Jim Stastny]

I'm quite impressed, not only by the workmanship, but also the beauty of the wood. That will most likely be a high dollar item on The Antiques Roadshow about 100 years from now.

[Michael Ballent]

Oh like that one!!! Was that plan yours or something you purchased? and where did you get the hardware... beautiful work!!!

-Michael

[Jason Tuinstra]

Duane,

Great looking piece of furniture! The wood selection is simply fantastic. Way to go. Thanks for sharing.

Jason

[Duane Dennis]

Thanks for the kind words guys! I'm a newbie, and it's a real treat to hear people enjoying your work!

To answer some questions:

CurlyWoods charges $12+/bf for 8/4 boards of that width in premium curly cherry. That's in line with what I paid. Here's a link to the page:

http://www.curlywoods.com/curlycherry.html

The plans were a real hybridization. The measurements for the sides and gate came from the Rockler 3n1 plans. The mattress springs and hardware were the Rockler's 3n1 kit. I had to modify the hardware some for the headboard.

The headboard is was my idea and concept but a WWer friend and gentleman on Woodnet, drew up measured drawings for me to help get me the concept onto paper and into something I could do something with. He also assisted in decribing a way to safely get me through glue up. The head board is basically a big raised panel(w/3 panels) with stub tenons on each end the full width of each side. These large tenons were then placed in grooves in the each headboard post. Not sure if that is making any sense or not...

I'm not the most experienced person to ask about working figured woods, but I will say that my techniques and methods mirror Donnie's.

The finishing was similarly a hybridization of many peoples ideas. I'm going to cut and paste what I've already written here:

"I gotta preface this with the statement that the finish was something of an exploration for me. I'm neither experienced, nor particularly knowledgeable. I learned alot along the way. There's probably a hundred other and better ways to do what I did, but here goes....

1) Brushed on one coat of Watco Natural, wiped off and let dry.

2) Brushed on 1 1lb coat of garnet shellac(hock brand purchased at Woodcraft) - let dry

3) Padded on 3 coats of 1lb Garnet shellac-let dry

4) lightly sanded with 0000 steel wool and mineral spirits. Wiped off clean with clean rag and more mineral spirits.

5) Padded on 2 coats of 1lb Super Blonde Shellac(Homesteadfinishing.com)- let dry

6) Sanded with gray scotchbright pad, and mineral spirits, wiped off clean.

7) Brushed on one coat of Waterlux high gloss, thinned about 35% with naptha.

8) Padded/wiped on another coat of Waterlux, thinned about 50%, using same technique similar to padding shellac.

9) Rubbed surface with mineral spririts and white Scothbrite pad, wiped clean dry.

10) Mixed brown antiquwax with mineral spirits to get a brown soupy gellish mixture. Applied by rubbing all over with white scotchbrite pad.

11) Rubbed into the surface with a clean cloth

12) Allowed to dry to haze, then wiped off with a different clean soft cloth. I intentionally left some of the dark wax residue in the profiles on the rails and stiles, to hopefully produce an antique look . Nothing outlandish, but it's there, and imo, it really adds to the overall appearance.

I experimented on lots of scrap and with lots of dyes, but couldn't quite hit what I was looking for. So I went with this "natural" process which is kind of a hybridization of what some folks recommended here, and some techniques in Jewitt's book. As it turned out, the process hit exactly what I wanted.

As the crib is a knock down, I was able to finish each piece individually. Before I did anything to the front of the headboard, I did it on the back.

I think that's it. For better or worse, that's what I did. "

[Bruce Page]

Beautiful!
I have never seen curly cherry that nice!
Awesom job on the crib!

[Jim Becker]

You sure got one lucky baby coming into the world!! I sure didn't have such an awesome crib...not that I could remember, of course... :D

Beautiful work.

[Todd Burch]

Duane, that is VERY nice. Thanks for posting. I didn't know curly cherry could get that curly! I reckon I'll be having to sell a job with heavy curly cherry so I can order some from Mike!

Todd

[David Durgy]

Ok Maybe it's too early in the morning. I was browsing your album on the construction and I'm stuck on this one.

http://www.woodworkersweb.com/modules.php?set_albumName=albup77&id=dryfit1&op=modload&name=gallery&file=index&include=view_photo.php

Where did the front piece disappear to?
I love the piece especially since there are rumblins my way that there are plans to give me an excuse to give one of these a go.

[Todd Burch]

David, is your wife going to start a doll collection? :):):) Needs some cradles for her dolls? :)

[Greg Scott]

Duane,
I was just wondering if your design was an adaptation to the Rockler Crib/Daybed/Fullbed plan. If so are you going to make the associated pieces to go with it? If so this would be a project that could be used for a lifetime. Wonderful work!!
Greg

[Randy Moore]

Very BEAUTIFUL is all I can say. That wood is very impressive.
Randy

[Mike Mastin]

Duane, that is VERY nice. Thanks for posting. I didn't know curly cherry could get that curly! I reckon I'll be having to sell a job with heavy curly cherry so I can order some from Mike!

Todd
Todd,

This was some very special lumber indeed. We rarely ever get figured Cherry like this in any quantity, unfortunately. In over two and half years of selling curly Cherry, this is some of the finest examples that I have ever seen or sold. Duane caught me in a weak moment on this board :-) This level of curl in Cherry we would typically sell in the $16.00 plus plus range. To get the maximum effect from curly Cherry must be quarter sawn, like these panels were that Duane purchased and we resawed for him. Of course there has to be incredible figure in the wood to start with or else you can't get to here just by quarter sawing :-)
These were some incredible boards no doubt, but it is Duane's craftmanship that really make this project sing. Excellent wood choices in all aspects, design and execution Duane!

[Duane Dennis]

Thanks again for the kind remarks everyone. It's really neat hearing postive comments from people who's work I admire greatly.


David,

You caught me! I hadn't taken a picture of that yet. Here's one in the youth bed configuration I just snapped off:

http://www.woodworkersweb.com/modules/gallery/albums/albup77/daybedconfig.jpg

Greg,

It is an adaptation from the Rockler 3n1 plans. I only made the crib and the youth bed configurations. I figured that if it got used for the day bed, it wouldn't be in such good condition later should I be blessed enough for my kids to want to use it for their kids.(Talk about cart before the horse...I'm 35 having my first kid and planning on where my grandkids are gonna sleep...LOL). At any rate, it's sort of planned in obsolescence till later.

Mike,

While I knew the board was special, I had no idea it was THAT special. I'm too green to know the difference. Maybe I should have bought another board for a special project later. My biggest fear was that I wouldn't do such beautiful wood right. It's means alot to me that you think I did!

[David Durgy]

David, is your wife going to start a doll collection? :):):) Needs some cradles for her dolls? :)

Nope, she's already a doll herself. Why buy a toy when you're already the real deal. :p
What I was referring to is what we call around here grandchildren. :D

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Duane...just one word to describe the wood and your workmanship..............Fantastic!

[Charles Bruno]

Very nice I've never seen curly cherry before.