Black Hat Shop Works

[aggierailroad]

Got a little work done on the slab. Started by using a scrub plane by hand. That's just a very heavily crowned (radiused) plane blade on a short frame. You can make deep cuts for quick removal, working 45 degrees to the grain. It makes scallops in the wood, but is fast.

The tearout was unbearable. It grabbed a huge chunk near a knot and dug a 1/4" hole right now!

Tried a low angle number 7 then, which worked great. Silky smooth, but would have taken 3 days.

Switched it up and used this bad boy, just a small handheld Makita power planer. The rotary action and short nips prevent gouging on this fairly figured ash.



Getting a little closer I start to use "winding sticks". Wind is "twist" in the lumber. You put them parallel across the grain on the board. Step back, get your eye level looking across the tops of both sticks. You'll quickly see which corner is high. Go back and plane that side, re check. You'll quickly march your way down the board to flatness.



I'm going to do a ceruse finish on this. It involves a grain cleaning with brass brush, grain raising with water, dye, shellac wash coat as sealer, another grain cleaning, liming wax and finally clear, hard wax.

 

[gipraw]

Very nice. That is a beautiful piece of wood. Can't wait to see the finished bed.

 

[aggierailroad]

Very nice. That is a beautiful piece of wood. Can't wait to see the finished bed.

Thanks. Should be cutting and tacking up the steel tonight.

 

[Hot Chop shop]

Looks great!
What's your thoughts on cheap Douglas fir wood found at big box stores? I know it's suppose to be used for building materials....But for like making a table top? Easy to work with and stain? Thinking of using 4"x4" held together by gorilla glue and function/cosmetic allthread every 2 feet.

 

[aggierailroad]

It would depend on the table's use. Sounds like a dining table??

Doug fir is great, but be careful that you know that's what it is. Most "white wood" sold at those stores is just that, it's actually alder or something just as cheap. It's hard to find Doug fir at Home Depot these days as it used to be the premium stuff.

Makes a great table - I don't know the look you're going for but try not staining it. Let it UV cure out in the sun for a day or more and let it get a nice brown tone. Topcoat with your sealer of choice and you'll love it

Oh yeah, and, it's great to work with and smells good to boot.

 

[aggierailroad]

Got some work done on the bed frame. Also got some glamour shots in, my buddy is a photographer and we traded some welding and cutting instruction. Glamour is a loosely used term, as I'm far from an ideal subject.

You'll be able to see his shots compared with my usual shaky hands blurry ones.

First step, cut some tubing. I like to make the square cuts first, then set the saw up for the miters and cut those last.



Getting it all laid out on the floor to get that first gut check on scale and dimensions.



First fit and tack up. Using a Lincoln C-300 powerwave with C25 gas, about 20cfm, 19 V, 190ipm of 0.030" er70s-6 wire. Ended up being a good combo for this 14 gauge tubing.



Gusset plates being tacked in.



I accidentally left the ERW seam on the outside of these miters. Be sure you plan your cuts better to save some smoothing!!



Punched the slotted holes in this 5/16" plate for the headboard attachment. What an easy way to build things like this... Spartan 88 Ironworker.



Slotted holes are required to allow for wood expansion. The fasteners need to be able to float in the steel. Use either a split or bellville washer for some light pressure, you don't want them super tight or you'll get buckling of the wood, even at this 2" thickness.

An interlude... a maple chair with everything being split into two and two again.. Pretty neat stuff I saw at a Texas gallery this weekend.



Little bit of welding.



Laying out the stitch welds for the headboard gussets.



Final weldout.



Ended up having to flame straighten the lower legs. The long seam weld pulled the legs inward. It became noticeable when they got stood up. A better method would have been to tack some bar or angle to the bottom of the legs during welding. Live and learn.



We pulled the leg straight with a bar clamp. Then slowly heat to a dull orange heat on the inside joint, over the weld, and at the corners. The leg will then grow away from the heat (towards the clamping direction). Let off the clamp and allow to cool constrained to the "straight" position.





Nice old vice.



Handtools



Plan your work, work your plan. Take breaks as needed.



Got the slab home and spent some time with the hand planer. This one just happened to plug in



Head and foot boards cleaned and ready for fitup of the rails and headboard.



Couldn't resist a preliminary layout. Looks like I'll want to straighten it up a bit and trim a tiny angle off. Just using a circular saw and straight edge for the final cuts.



Here's the other direction.



Thanks for reading. Any/all questions welcome.

 

[Vieux]

I love your work. Great! You are very talented!

 

[aggierailroad]

I love your work. Great! You are very talented!

Thank you! You're doing some great work yourself, those are quite the restorations - your quote is fantastic - The eyes fear, the hands make. I couldn't agree more. Things look intimidating until you get that first coat of primer on them. Just spend some hours and then some more and it usually works out.

 

[Hot Chop shop]

It would depend on the table's use. Sounds like a dining table??

Doug fir is great, but be careful that you know that's what it is. Most "white wood" sold at those stores is just that, it's actually alder or something just as cheap. It's hard to find Doug fir at Home Depot these days as it used to be the premium stuff.

Makes a great table - I don't know the look you're going for but try not staining it. Let it UV cure out in the sun for a day or more and let it get a nice brown tone. Topcoat with your sealer of choice and you'll love it

Oh yeah, and, it's great to work with and smells good to boot.

Very cool headboard! Always awesome when you get access to use a shop like that! The mess every time I make when switching between wood work and metal is very time consuming. Thanks for the wood tips as always! I have to go back to lowes cause now I'm doubting it was Douglas fir I saw... I've been reading a few blogs where people use very cheap wood and stain it and distress it and get the same results or at least look as reclaimed wood.

 

[aggierailroad]

Very cool headboard! Always awesome when you get access to use a shop like that! The mess every time I make when switching between wood work and metal is very time consuming. Thanks for the wood tips as always! I have to go back to lowes cause now I'm doubting it was Douglas fir I saw... I've been reading a few blogs where people use very cheap wood and stain it and distress it and get the same results or at least look as reclaimed wood.

For sure. Despite popular opinion, Minwax makes a great stain. The only real difference you'll get in using alder or similar wood is the blotchy staining, whereas Doug fir or walnut will be that nice dark color forever. Try a local hardwood yard if you have one, I've found that the price of the material is reasonable especially considering the time invested into DIY projects.

For scale? That ash slab was $130. Not bad.

 

[56vette461]

Hot Chop Shop: I use a light coat of a sanding sealer on some of the wood I use. It helps eliminate some of the splotchy stain problems and gives a more uniform stain look.

 

[Hot Chop shop]

For sure. Despite popular opinion, Minwax makes a great stain. The only real difference you'll get in using alder or similar wood is the blotchy staining, whereas Doug fir or walnut will be that nice dark color forever. Try a local hardwood yard if you have one, I've found that the price of the material is reasonable especially considering the time invested into DIY projects.



For scale? That ash slab was $130. Not bad.

I tried the local wood dealer and I wanna say two pieces of alder were $100 ish? I might be lying but I remember thinking it wasn't cheap for two boards... So I check Home Depot and it is Douglas fir for $9 for a 4"x4" 8feet long very inexpensive since I'll need 12. Then little gorilla glue between lots of clamps and even a all-thread spaced every two feet-ish throughout to make the table top.... I'll post some pics as I get going.

 

[skippy24]

I tried the local wood dealer and I wanna say two pieces of alder were $100 ish? I might be lying but I remember thinking it wasn't cheap for two boards... So I check Home Depot and it is Douglas fir for $9 for a 4"x4" 8feet long very inexpensive since I'll need 12. Then little gorilla glue between lots of clamps and even a all-thread spaced every two feet-ish throughout to make the table top.... I'll post some pics as I get going.

If you are looking at getting a distressed look you should investigate using a mixture of steel wool and vinegar. You can Google some videos on what it will look like.

 

[TLCObsession]

So I check Home Depot and it is Douglas fir for $9 for a 4"x4" 8feet long very inexpensive since I'll need 12. Then little gorilla glue between lots of clamps and even a all-thread spaced every two feet-ish throughout to make the table top.... I'll post some pics as I get going.

I would not use Gorilla glue as my experience has been that the glue lines will show. I would use a Tite-Bond glue suitable for the environment.

 

[aggierailroad]

I tried the local wood dealer and I wanna say two pieces of alder were $100 ish? I might be lying but I remember thinking it wasn't cheap for two boards... So I check Home Depot and it is Douglas fir for $9 for a 4"x4" 8feet long very inexpensive since I'll need 12. Then little gorilla glue between lots of clamps and even a all-thread spaced every two feet-ish throughout to make the table top.... I'll post some pics as I get going.

Man, I dunno what your table is for, but you really don't want to make it out of 4x4. It will be so heavy and hard to get flat that you'll really lose interest in it. Even a work surface wouldn't have to be more than 2" if you wanted to go sparingly on the bracing underneath. I also advocate for no gorilla glue on long face glue ups. The foaming action will really make cleanup a pain and it could even cause some gaps. Stick with Titebond II or even Elmers wood glue. You'll appreciate the working time and cleanup. I'd even only glue up 6 members at a time and then do the two halves.

 

[aggierailroad]

More bedframe work:

Made a test piece for the color. I actually wanted a charcoal gray "cerused" finish. Cerusing uses a limed wax rubbed into the wood pores and grain, which is then wiped off and covered in clear wax. The white stays in and leaves a cool look. It's been around for hundreds of years and popular with a lot of electric guitar finishes and high end cabinetry.

Well, my results with gray dyes were bleak. Even in double strength, it turned green. The only next step was to try charring, and I really don't have a great way to get an even char, so I experimented around with black dyes and stains both. For grins, I tried just over bare wood. Turns out, I liked it the best.



Moving on, I spent more time with the planer and picked up a belt sander to smooth the ridges left from the blade corners.



Fitup of the slab on the frame. This thing is heavy.



Routing out pockets for the mounting tabs. The reason for this is to rout little pockets parallel with the front, rather than trying to flatten the entire back to parallel. I used a similar rig to way back in my first posts, but it mounted to the front face for a point of reference. Worked like a champ.



Final dry fit:



Detail shot of the tabs and rabbets:



Now I needed to clean the edge up. Unfortunately I couldn't find a brash wire brush for a drill or grinder. Had to go with a pretty coarse twisted wire cup. Little harsh, but I tried just light pressure. Before:



Blurry after:



The ash beetles had this pretty soft. After cleaning, I hit it by hand with a wire brush, then shot it with spray clear shellac. This seals in any last bits and acts as a binder for the loose material.

This is a first coat of the liming wax, applied with rag and buffed off with 0000 steel wool.



Shot of the back, with clear wax. The clear pulls a lot of the white off. You can really smooth any variations out by how much you scrub with the clear. It stays very silvery if you skip, which looked nice, but I ended up liking it gone.



This is the top side. On this one I belt sanded 80, then 120. 4 passes with 180 grit by hand. I used the sanding powder to fill in (mostly) the beetle holes. Then I shot it with two coats of shellac to lock in the sawdust. This will keep it from feeling pockmarked yet highlight the holes and tunnels when the liming wax is left behind. Sand off the shellac on the high sides so that you get an even finish.



Next is about 4 passes with 220 grit, followed by a light misting with water to raise any grain, and then a quick 220 grit scuff. After that, I'll use a fine brass brush to clean the grain and vacuum the surface before applying the liming wax. Hope to start that tomorrow

With any luck I'll have the steel at the powdercoaters soon and the rails made up (mostly) this weekend. Thanks for reading.

 

[bulletpruf]

Beautiful work. Thanks for sharing the details with us.

Scott

 

[aggierailroad]

Beautiful work. Thanks for sharing the details with us.

Scott

Thank you, it's my pleasure.

 

[aggierailroad]

Weekend updates.

Here's the slab halfway through the liming wax process.



And all buffed out with the clear Briwax on top. If you go this route know that the clear pulls off some of the white. This really helps you level out any blotchiness.



Ash all milled up for the side rails and footboard. 1.5" x 7.5"



Setting the foot board to layout the pockets for the steel mounts.



Here's the trick. You can either make a huge baseplate for your router, which works great. The downside is that you can't see anything when you use it. I prefer to use a fence and cut the three sides to full depth. Then, rout out an island in the middle that will support your base. By hand, just whittle away in a counter clockwise pattern. I used a 3/8" spiral upcut bit for this.



Once you've got the meat out, working left to right, whittle away your island. By the time you get to the end, the router is being supported by the edges anyways.

Now you've got the very end left. Take a chisel, bevel side down and lightly score the piece with light hammer strikes.



Once you've scored across, give it a firmer tap and it will knock off cleanly.



Chamfer the end for clearance around the welds and you're done. This took about 10 minutes per side.



Set in and check for clearance. Done and done.

 

[MP&C]

Awesome! Going with powder coat on the steel frame, antiqued finish, or ????

 

[aggierailroad]

Awesome! Going with powder coat on the steel frame, antiqued finish, or ????

I'm going to try and swing by to look at samples today, but it'll likely be a brilliant gloss white, or a steel/coal/anthracite gray. I haven't seen any gray colors online that aren't metallic. I'm welcoming anyone's opinion on colors - I don't have to use them - but I don't mind bench racing something that's sort of expensive and permanent.

Also, to anyone, and you Robert, are tiny pinholes unacceptable for coating? They tell me the blast, zinc prime, bake, clean then coat. I need an idea for how much worry I should have into the minutia of weld cleanup.

 

[MP&C]

I would say that amount of detail would be dictated by the finish. A rustic, antiqued finish and you're done now. A brilliant white may show some of the pin holes more readily, so there you may want to fill some of them. But then, the headboard is full of worm holes, why shouldn't the rest?

 

[aggierailroad]

My sentiments exactly - A few pinholes won't hurt. The powder coat I think I'm going with has a very slight texture, should hide the pinholes..

Got some work done - rebated the rail hooks.



Liming wax on everything. I won't lie - this wasn't fun.



Made and welded in tabs for center rail support.



Slat mockup. Save yourself the headache and get these from Ikea. $54. You can't even buy beech (the usual material for slats) for this little money. These come made, laminated, bent and strung together.



Shop selfie burning the midnight oil...

 

[magrahamkp08]

This is a great thread to follow along


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[aggierailroad]

Thank you kindly, magrahamkp08.

More to come after my move.

 

[aggierailroad]

Got the bed assembled, but first - parts got back from powdercoat.



They look great, the place did a fine job.

Mounted up the foot board rail.



And the monster headboard. Everything fit together really well. I was surprised that I didn't need to grind the powdercoat off of the connection points.





Note that I still need to add a center board for the mattress support slats.

Some glamour shots..





Rail is in for the slats now. Just a 1/4 screwed to the steel rail. a 3/4"x3/16" divider was glued in to keep the slats in place.



The slats are from Ikea. Once you price out the material and time to make them yourself, pre-bought ones are very attractive.





The bed is in place and a Leesa mattress in a box on top. The thing is pretty darn comfortable, I recommend checking them out if you're ready for a new mattress.



Final fit and finish... Ignore the pillows, my little cousin helped me to "decorate".



Thanks for reading.

 

[j p smith]

Wow, Very nice project.

 

[aggierailroad]

Thanks, j p smith, it was a fun one to build. I'd like to do another if anyone wants one

 

[TimeWarpF100]

Very Nice!

 

[1969]

Very nice indeed! I have been contemplating a build such as this for some time, just havn't worked up the ambition yet. The centre rail...... is that metal, and if so , what size would it be?

 

[aggierailroad]

1969, the center rail is metal, it's a leftover bit of the 1"x3". I think 1x2 would work as well. All of the tubing is 0.083" wall. I centered a 1x4 red oak (didn't have any ash left) on it and used self tapping decking screws that countersink in. Then I used glue and small brass brads to secure the little cap to hold the slats in place. This is the first and only bed I've slept on that doesn't squeak

The big thing I'd do different is to use my router sled (one of my first posts on this thread) to flatten the slab. It would have been twice as fast.