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The Maria Camila - Rails

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Lay out line helperThis day starts off with laying out the shapes of the various pieces and the locations of the dowels we will be using as spindles.  To help me see the lines on this dark walnut lumber I lay masking tape down where the lay out marks and lines will be.

laying out curvesTo lay out curved shapes I trace around the paper templates I made or use a compass.  This compass is also useful in laying out the spacing for the spindles. p; Set the compass to the distance between the hole centers, then just walk it down the center line, cross-hashing each hole center as you go; this saves a lot if tedious work with a ruler.

Lay out lines for dowel holesTo save even more time I strap all the matching parts together and lay them all out at once.  Here I have both upper cradle rails and their lower rails.  I laid out the center line on each before bundling them, then used the compass to lay out the hole locations on one and used a square to bring these cross lines across the entire bundle.  Now I just lightly center punch the points where the lines across the bundle cross each center line and I have all the hole centers marked.  The light punch also gives me a dimple for the spur on the Forstner bit I'll use to drill the holes to lodge, thus aiding me in getting all the holes where they need to be.

A whole mess of holesI use a Forstner bit in the drill press to insure that all the holes are true and straight.  When all the holes have been drilled I can remove the masking tape and use the router table to round over the edges of these pieces.  I'll use three different radius bits, as small as 1/8" for the rails where the wood gets thin between the holes and teh edges of the rail, and as much as 5/16" on the upper edges of headboard, upper rails and arms where I want the corners to be as "soft" as possible.

Dry fitting the railsFinally I take all the parts I just made and fit them to the Nanny Rocker that has been coming together in our assembly room.  This is just being held together by friction and a few screws right now, no glue for I will need to take it all apart again once I'm satisfied that it all fits.


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