Red Maple Bedroom Suite *Update

[DWyatt]

I am in the process of building a 6 piece bedroom suite for the secretary at work and her husband. This is my first project in MY shop which is an amazing feeling! This will be a continuing thread since I'm building it in phases. This weekend I got the headboard finished up and ready for final touch up sanding and stain and finish. *No fasteners were harmed in the making of this headboard* :D

Dad and I cut the tree down on his property and it was the first one I cut on my mill and first load through the kiln with the new Nyle L53 set up. This stuff is beautiful!  8)

 

 

And here's one that shows a bit more of the detail.



 

This is my first real project for my side business I'm trying to start so I'm trying to document it better with pictures.

[barbender]

Wow!! That is beautiful👍👍

[DWyatt]

Thanks @beenthere for the PM. 

I should have noted:

 The lower area where i made the tongue and groove boards to mimic bead board type paneling. All of the pieces sit in a groove, top and bottom, I glued all of the vertical pieces together and only glued the middle 2 pieces to the horizontal stretchers. This allows for movement of the pieces in the horizontal direction (into recessed grooves that are cut into the legs). I hope that makes sense, otherwise with something as wide as a California King headboard, you would get huge splits.

The top panels are free floating inside the frame that boarders them, with those little rubber balls providing spacing to keep everything tight. I learned the hard way about expansion and contraction of wood on one of my first woodworking projects, it ended with a big split. Luckily it's just in my house.

[Crusarius]

That is some beautiful maple. 

[hacknchop]

Beautiful work I will be checking as you add to it. smiley_clapping

[Hilltop366]

 

[WDH]

Simply fantastic. 

[AK Newbie]

Wow beautiful work, I look forward to following your progress!

[DPatton]

That is going to be a really nice piece. Beautiful.

[DWyatt]

A little update. Been trucking along as much as possible the last few days. Work has been hectic to say the least lately which means much more overtime. But it just won't stop raining so it's keeping the contractors from stomping down our door at the office.

In lieu of a foot board the customer decided they wanted a shelf of sorts to be able to put shoes and what not. I have the top and middle shelf glued up for this but forgot to take a picture. You can kind of see them standing up in the right side of the picture.

Anyways, here's the legs for that shelf. Built exactly like the headboard, just smaller. These will sit at a 5° angle, more sturdy in my mind and more appealing than vertical.



 

I have also been working on getting material cut and glued together for the legs on the dresser, chest of drawers, and night stands. Yes, it would be a lot more ideal to use solid material for the legs but at the time i milled the logs they didn't know what style they wanted and weren't sure if they even wanted defined square legs.

Personally, I like the idea of laminating material to make legs anyways. I can watch how the material moves as I process it to rough size and when I glue things up I can make sure any tension/bow is opposing each other. This seems to make things very stable when I go to final dimension everything.

Short legs for nightstands


 

Long legs for dresser and chest of drawers



 

[DWyatt]

Made some good progress in the last week or so. Last night I finished touching up some areas with fine sandpaper then cleaned the shop some and got the headboard and shelf bench stained. I went through a bunch of different stains with the customer. They didn't like how light the natural wood was but also loved the character of the maple. Many of the stains I tried really muted the character of the wood, but we settled on Varathane Ipswitch Pine. As I was staining, the color started to grow on me more, but it's still just a shame to cover up such beautiful wood. Planning to spray these two pieces Friday and get them delivered so I can start the last 4 pieces. 

Enjoy the pictures. 8)



  



 



 



 

[Crusarius]

I like the ipswitch pine but your right. that is a shame with how beautiful that wood was. should have been clear.

[DWyatt]

I agree, but at least I talked them into something A LOT lighter than their first pick, it was dark and red and completely washed the character out of the wood.

Side note, here's my bed that is made (Sorry for the dark picture) from the same wood, but very spalted, and just cleared. The wood is just stunning, I just have to teach myself that not everyone is into the natural beauty and character like myself



 

[WDH]

Fine, very very fine.

[hacknchop]

Excellent craftsmanship,we're loving it.

[123maxbars]

nice job, 

[samandothers]

Just read this.  Great job on the project, wonderful design.  The finish looks nice.

[barbender]

Beautiful, just beautiful! If the customer is paying the right price, I'd put roofing tar over high grade walnut if that's what they want😁

[RPF2509]

Keep in mind that most maple will darken somewhat with age regardless of finish.  Our maple kitchen cabinets started bleached blond and after two years ended up more honey blond.  A very satisfying transformation.

[DPatton]

Regardless of color the craftsmanship is impeccable. I say Bravo!

[DWyatt]

I finally feel like I've made enough progress that I can post an update. Work keeps getting busier and my list of non-woodworking stuff to do at home is growing twice as fast as I expected. The non-stop rain has kept me inside for the last couple days though.

I finished assembling all of the boxes this weekend for the dresser, chest of drawers, and two nightstands! I stained all of the edges where there was a chance of glue squeeze out so I didn't have to deal with the pain in the butt task of scraping glue from the corners. 



 

I just can't get over how beautiful this wood is  8)



 

[WDH]

It is very under-appreciated in my opinion.  Hard maple gets all the accolades, but red maple has more color and character at least the Southern red maple does.  Because it is "soft" maple, it is looked down on by some, but it is as hard as cherry and walnut and they are not considered "soft". 

[DWyatt]

I very much agree with that. This wood has beautiful colors and character and is an absolute joy to work with compared to the sugar (hard) maple I have worked with. My only complaint is that if you are planing with straight knives, they better be sharp. This stuff gets tear out like crazy but not like you get from hickory or around knots where it chunks out. It comes out as long runs in the grain like you drug a sharp rake along the length of the board and then lifted it up and left a big groove with a bunch of almost fuzzy edges. I'll try to find a board I had issues with and snap a picture.

[sawmilllawyer]

WOW! Excellent craftsmanship with a great looking wood. Soft Maple it may be but it is still pretty hard wood.

[DWyatt]

I know I have been not making much progress on this build, the customer said no hurry as they are very busy during the summer as well. I decided it was time to get cranking again. Below are pictures of the drawers I got completed in the last couple days. I use a 9 ply 1/2" baltic birtch plywood for all drawers. It is high grade with no voids and close to 1/16" veneer ply. All drawers use the drawer joint shaper cutter from Grizzly. Glue and nail the corner joints and glue drawer bottoms into their groove. They are solid, look good, and fast to make. Glue, clamp, nail with 1" brads, repeat.



 



 

Of course I ran out of plywood with 2.5 drawers left to make, off to get more tomorrow hopefully. I also go the drawer fronts roughed out last night. but no picture.