Baby Build; Project: COT ROCKER

[rtbiscuit]

Some of you may find this interesting i'm guessing most wont but a while back some of you asked me to post a build thread when i started doing any carpentry projects for my forth coming twins. we have to moses baskets but no stands so these are going to be 2 rocking stands.

 

well i started them last week, i've had a couple of hours to do bits and bobs, i'm not finished yet, but this is as far as i've got in 2 hours.

 

as all good plans start on the back of a fag packet, this one was A. to big for the fag packet, and B. i quit nearly 10 months ago now. so no packets to write on, so i had to substitute with a bit of paper.

 

this is my quickly scribbled plan with a few basic measurements and key info and a rough idea of direction. yes i know what your thinking, leonard di vinci is turning in his grave with jealousy at the quality draftmanship and accurate plotting

 

 

next job was to settle on some wood, having access to a big arse workshop helps, for this project i decided to be an eco warrior, so i've recycled an old science bench from school, we've had them lying around for a while, so i planked it and planed it down to this

 

 

for any of you wondering its iroko wood, superb stuff to work with, tiny dust particles that get right to the back of your throat , but its a good strong hard wood, with a lovely finish. and a good tight grain structure.

 

next job was to strip the planks, using my trusty chopper; its nice having a bench mounted circular saw always setup, makes jobs so quick and easy.

 

 

and this is the resulting pile of match sticks i am left with. all cut to size and most of the basic joint sections marked but not cut

 

 

being economical with my wood this was what i had left over; which will be reused later for some other bits.

 

 

Now technically thats as far as i got and that was last thursday, i was supposed to upload it all on here and then update with progress later, but got snowed under so only now been able to sit down and do it, which just so happens to be after todays little jaunt in the workshop.

 

so afternoon number 2,

 

i only had an hour this afternoon, but i've quickly gone through and cut all the male parts of the wood joints, I'm using a single dovetail lap joint. adds a bit of strength to the design and a little prettier than just a normal lap joint. i will also do some other finishes later to reinforce them and make them more decorative.

 

 

 

I've also cut to shape some other parts as well.

 

and thats as far as i've got so far, i'll update hopefully tomorrow if i get a chance to do some more after work.

 

next job is going to be cut all the female parts of the joints and chisel in to shape. i'm hoping by tomorrow the frames will start to take shape. i'm starting to panic a little as when i got home today my wife had been to see the midwife, and she says they've turned in to the head down position and look like they might be makeing a break for the exit. which means i need to hurry up and finish these.

Edited September 16, 2013 by rtbiscuit

[DoogyRev]

i'm starting to panic a little as when i got home today my wife had been to see the midwife, and she says they've turned in to the head down position and look like they might be makeing a break for the exit. which means i need to hurry up and finish these.

 

For god sake Rich, pull ya finger out, what you been doing for the last 9 months . . . .

 

Looks like a nice little project Although . . . .

 

 

 

 

Am I the only one who thinks your drawing looks like a guillotine

 

Looking forward to tomorrow update

[Lexx]

Didn't know you were having twins mate! Congrats!

I have a load of useful and less useful knowledge I can give on being father of twins. PM me if you want any of it.

 

A cot rocker would have been in god send in the early days of my boys lives!

[Keyser]

Coming on

 

You could pull the windscreen wiper motor and arms from that old Jag of yours and have an electric cot rocker

[twobears]

I got an 'A' for woodwork at school but our workshop was nowhere near as good as yours! It looks like a great project to work on and I am looking forward to seeing the finished items, complete with cute little twin babies of course

 

Lol at DoogyRev's guillotine comment

Edited September 17, 2013 by twobears

[glrnet]

So envious of the permanent bench saw!!

[jumping350]

your like Norm Abrham

[rtbiscuit]

i'm starting to panic a little as when i got home today my wife had been to see the midwife, and she says they've turned in to the head down position and look like they might be makeing a break for the exit. which means i need to hurry up and finish these.

 

For god sake Rich, pull ya finger out, what you been doing for the last 9 months . . . .

 

Looks like a nice little project Although . . . .

 

Am I the only one who thinks your drawing looks like a guillotine

 

Looking forward to tomorrow update

I had to wait till the pram arrived, as its the removable pram sections we're turning into the cots. but yes time is running out fast, and no its not a gilloutine, I just over drew the curve on the bottom

Didn't know you were having twins mate! Congrats!

I have a load of useful and less useful knowledge I can give on being father of twins. PM me if you want any of it.

 

A cot rocker would have been in god send in the early days of my boys lives!

Thanks Lexx, any advice is good, i'm going in blind an naïve to this, I bought my self the commado dad book of parenting which is helping, but i'm going to be very much a novice at this.

Coming on

 

You could pull the windscreen wiper motor and arms from that old Jag of yours and have an electric cot rocker

it might be old but it now all in working order, I don't fancy dismantling it. but I could always look on eBay for a set of old ford wiper motors.

I got an 'A' for woodwork at school but our workshop was nowhere near as good as yours! It looks like a great project to work on and I am looking forward to seeing the finished items, complete with cute little twin babies of course

 

Lol at DoogyRev's guillotine comment

I love working in wood I find it very rewarding material to work with. and i'm enjoying having a little project on the go. got an afterschool club to run this evening, but they are hopefully self sufficient which should mean I get a bit more done.

So envious of the permanent bench saw!!

do you want me to take pics later of the rest of the workshops, that's actually my technicians room, it also has a permanent planer in there, and twin grinder and reciprocating saw. my workshop has bandsaws, pillar drills hegnar saws, polishing wheels sanding disks etc and full forge setup and oxyacetelyene and mig welder. also got laser cutters 3d printers and big plotter cutters.

your like Norm Abrham

mate you'll need to educate me, I don't know that name

[jumping350]

Its on Quest he has program called new yankee workshop hes a wood genius!! Its amazing really and he is so precise everything has to be done like 10 steps in advance

Edited September 17, 2013 by jumping350

[rtbiscuit]

Its on Quest he has program called new yankee workshop hes a wood genius!! Its amazing really and he is so precise everything has to be done like 10 steps in advance

i'm making this up as I go along, no 10 steps here, I have a rough idea in my head and know roughly how its going to work, but the rest is a working plan. I suppose the only thing is I only glue it all together at the end.

[LRF4N]

Wish I had the ability to do stuff like this. Recycling an old desk is a pretty cool idea as well

 

When is the big day?

[rtbiscuit]

Wish I had the ability to do stuff like this. Recycling an old desk is a pretty cool idea as well

 

When is the big day?

Theoretically its the 28th of October, but from what the midwife said yesterday it looks like the lower twin has turned and they think he's getting ready to make a break fro it. technically another 6 weeks, but I think it will be in the next 3, my wife's been told to finish at the end of this week and not next week like she planned. maybe need to start running a sweep stake on the delivery day.

[Lexx]

Seb, our lead twin, was head down and engaged for 6 weeks. Bugger didn't want to move at all!

Helen went to 39 week, 4 days. So be prepared to wait! lol

[rtbiscuit]

Seb, our lead twin, was head down and engaged for 6 weeks. Bugger didn't want to move at all!

Helen went to 39 week, 4 days. So be prepared to wait! lol

they've both been laid transverse for the majority of the pregnancy but all of a sudden he seems to have changed, i'm fairly relaxed, but it seems to be the midwife that reckons an early onset. the other issue is lucys had a lot of swelling in her feet, and a bout of high blood pressure, and yesterday they found high white blood cell count and protein. so waiting to see what the results are. we're a planned C-section, but the date may be moved out of our control if the doctors decide they want them out early. i'm more than happy if they choose to spend another 6 months in there. i'm still enjoying my lay ins at the weekend

[ioneabee]

i'm still enjoying my lay ins at the weekend

 

make the most of them......'cos o'boy is that gonna change :lol:

[Vik54]

Clever stuff Richard! Good luck for delivery etc and give Lucy lots of foot rubs

[LRF4N]

i'm still enjoying my lay ins at the weekend

 

make the most of them......'cos o'boy is that gonna change :lol:

 

It sure is! One is bad nevermind 2!

 

My wee girl is a year tomorrow thankfully her sleeping routine settled early on. It's been an amazing year tho il never forget the day she came into the world

[rtbiscuit]

Not a massive update this evening, had an after school club to run, so only cut 4 of the dove tail slots. and this is them just slotted together for now on a test fit

[rtbiscuit]

well i had a good run at it this evening managed a couple of hours work.

 

you know that saying measure twice, cut once. my old man taught me that, and i teach it on a regular basis, so why in a million years did i not follow sound advice more on this later, its not as bad as it sounds, but it does mean tomorrow will require some minor adjustment.

 

First job was to sort the rocking edges on the bottoms of the stand, i knocked up a quick template in CAD and then set too with the band-saw.

 

 

this gave me the access i needed to cut the joints and saved me from having to chisel out the whole section. and i could get on with marking and cutting the dovetails. again i;m using half lap dovetails to keep the strength in the build and it helps keep its shape.

 

 

as you can see the dovetails stick out over the curve of the rocker

 

 

not a problem as my industrial sander makes light work of them

 

 

so this is one frame all test fitted together

 

 

 

bit later on this was just before i went home i managed to get all 4 frames together

 

 

and this is a dismantled view of the parts as they are so far; there is still another 4 joints to go in as i have to cut and mount the horizontals that give the frame its cube shape and keep the 2 ends at a set distance.

 

 

now you may be wondering what i was talking about earlier when i said about cut once measure twice. or you may not if this isn't your sort of thing.

 

well i took 2 frames home to test fit with the pram cot sections. i put the first one on at the feet end, and it fitted like a glove. perfect. went to test the other one at the head end....and oh fudge it doesn't fit. turns out there is a 4 cm difference in the frame between the head end and the foot end. and i had although measured twice, only measured the foot end and assumed it was the same all the way up. which means some minor alterations and surgery as i have to reclaim 4 Cm's of space out of 5 Cm's of wood.

 

but i have a cunning plan and all will be reveled hopefully tomorrow evening

[marzman]

Really interesting Rich, keep it coming.

[DoogyRev]

Nice work Rich, gonna look good when its finished

 

I tend to measure, measure again, have a cuppa tea (or beer) then measure again. And after the refreshment break, I always find fault with the pre drinkie-poos measurements

[rtbiscuit]

Its not a major fix, nothing a bandsaw, some pva and a bit of wood can't fix

[glrnet]

Nice work Rich, gonna look good when its finished

 

I tend to measure, measure again, have a cuppa tea (or beer) then measure again. And after the refreshment break, I always find fault with the pre drinkie-poos measurements

Especially if you've had a beer.

[squit]

nice wood work skills

[rtbiscuit]

I have been busy, which has meant i've been a little slow on the updates, so the first issue i had was to sort out the minor ballsup with the wrong dimensions. so i quickly cut some lenghts and rounded the ends to widen the top of one side.

 

 

once happy with the place it was just a case of bonding them on with good old PVA

 

 

 

once it had driewd enough for me to work the wood again i trimmed in the new widths at the top on the bandsaw

 

 

which has given me a finished end that looks slightly like a conceptional art bulls head

 

 

so a complete front and back set for the cot rockers now looks like this

 

 

so that lost me an afternoon session but did put me back on track. trusting my new dimensions i then set about sorting the sides of the frame out that would hold the structure together.

 

i cut more lapped dovetails into the sides which has turned the edges into some interesting shapes.

 

 

i then mount up each side as i went along

 

 

and i finally end up with a finished frame that looks something like this

 

 

 

 

now i say finished but its not really, at the moment the frame is only dry jointed, there is no adhesive, and there is some play in the frame and its not square at the moment, but the reason i haven't bonded it yet is that i want to test fit it with the cot basket before i add any adhesive, just in case there are any minor alterations i might need to make. as its far easier when a frame can be dismantled than when its bonded together.

 

so i very carefully lobbed it in the front of the jag and took it home to test fit.

 

 

 

its slightly on the squint at the moment but as i said above theres no adhesive.

 

so following day and back intot he workshop next job is to bond the ends together and also square them off.

 

 

 

so in the pictures above what you can see is the small metal clamps pushing the joints together and the long squeeze clamps being used to square the frames.

 

for any one who is interested when i refer to squaring the frames i mean to make sure that the frame isn't on the squint, if you let that happen the whole product can look twisted and out of kilter. the technique i use is that when the frames are drying, take a tape measure and measure diagonally across the frame in an X shape. you'll get 2 readings. if the readings are the same then the frame is square. but if one is longer than the other then the frame is squint. use the longer clamp to squeeze the longer size down. adjust gently till both sides are the same in diagonal length. then leave to dry.

 

and that's how i left things on Friday evening before i went home.

 

when i go back in next week, i still need to bond the sides in place, apply a little filler to tidy up any gaps, then sand both frames down fully and do any minor shaping. and then its down to the finishing.

 

i still have one decision to make and that is if i do some decorative dowel jointing to the lapped dovetails. this basically means drilling a hole through the dovetail joint, and then using a light wood dowel gluing it in the whole and sanding the whole lot down smooth, this gives an extra layer of strength to the frame, but also some small decorative features to the frame.

 

I'll see how i go for time