Hello everyone,
First of all, thanks for the vast quantities of advice I've encountered here the past two years; I have not yet posted before now (and only joined recently) because my woodworking skills are still in their infancy and there has been so much to learn without a need to post and ask questions; I’ve been able to find the answers to most of my questions through various searches here and elsewhere. Please excuse my rudeness if my question below is enough of a repeat that I should have been able to find the answer through a search.
Second, thanks in advance for putting up with my long post and thanks in advance for any advice.
I’ve decided to finally post to ask for some advice, specifically regarding which tool (if, really, any) I should campaign for purchasing next. Given previous success with a couple of more modest furniture-sized projects, I've received the go-ahead to build something more ambitious. I am therefore starting to design a “playhouse bed” for my three-year-old son (which I may need to duplicate for his little brother, due at the end of July). While I go through the process of designing it I am doing my best to think through the process of building it. As I do so, I realize that my available tools are adequate for what I have in mind, but there are a number of tools I don’t yet have which would make a number of the operations faster or provide better results with less effort. Both of these considerations are important to me, but time probably more so: as with so many other people my time available for woodworking is quite limited (I have a part-time job, I'm a full-time grad student, plus a father, a husband, a homeowner, and so on). Thus, I very much value my time in the shop and I would like to be efficient while still being able to take my time and enjoy the process, if that makes any sense at all.
Please forgive my wordy description of the project; I don’t have pictures yet (still working on the design), so hopefully a verbal description of what I have in mind will be adequate to help assess what tool would provide the largest time savings and/or best results.
The playhouse bed consists of two main parts: the first is a bed frame with its carcass built using mortise and tenon joinery, holding two large drawers. This will be a separate component from the “house” so that it can be used on its own once he outgrows the desire for a house component (which could then be passed on to his little brother, assuming I don't need to duplicate it before then). In addition to having a number of mortises and tenons, the sides and back are intended to be panels riding in grooves in the legs, rails, and stiles. Hopefully, I haven’t butchered the terminology too much.
The second part is the “house” that will go over the bed frame. I intend this to be something I can disassemble so that I can move it out of the room later without having to destroy it first. It will essentially be four sides plus a roof. It will be on stilts of an appropriate height such that the mattress forms the “floor” of the house; as it will be in the corner of the room, there will be one window on each of the sides facing away from the walls of his bedroom. Each of the walls of the house will have its own panel in grooves on the rails and stiles, attaching to the “legs” at the corners of the house with pinned tenons (very slight drawbore, so that they will be removable). The rails and stiles on the walls, together with the legs, would form the carcass of the house. The front wall at the side of the house is going to be a pair of doors that open up fully to provide easy access for changing bed linens. It seems less important to go into details on the roof, but I certainly can do so if people have questions.
So, finally, to my question: should I try to convince my wife that I should get a shoulder plane for precise fitting of 70 or so tenons and shoulders, a plow (plough) plane or combination plane for handling the tongue and groove joinery, a jointer plane for ease of making sure everything is flat and square to start, something else, or no new tools at all? All of these tools have been on my LV/LN wish lists for about two years now, and she's well aware that I want them "eventually." Particularly with a second child on the way, however, I don't see myself being able to convince her that all three at once would be a good idea, no matter how much I'd like to.
To help evaluate my situation and how much any given tool may help, here’s how I would do all this with my existing tools.
My plan for making tenons with my existing tool set is to use my saw to cut the cheeks, router plane to make sure the tenon is parallel to the reference face, a #4 plane and chisels to fit the tenons precisely, and chisels to take care of the shoulders. For the mortises, my chisels. For the grooves, a cutting gauge followed with a knife and perhaps chisel to define the groove at the surface, a saw to cut approximately to depth, and my router plane with ¼ inch blade and fence to clear the waste down the center. For the flattening/truing/squaring, my #5 plane with winding sticks and a combination square.
Once again, thank you for putting up with my verbosity and thank you in advance for the advice.
Best regards,
Michael Bulatowicz