The Baby Cradle, continued-working on the template & creating the quadrefoil cutout

Hello Again,

Picking up where I left off yesterday...

I finished all the box sides and they came out really well. I am quite pleased about this:

Now the template for the sides needs to be completed and what I need next is a template for the quadrefoils on the sides of the cradle.

If you remember the photograph is shows 2 quadrefoils on each side. The plans in the book, which are poorly done, don't really give any guidance as to the placement of the quadrefoil or really any information other than the circles that make up the quadrefoil arms are 1 3/8" in diameter. So I decided to make a small template, draw and mark out the drilling points, and then place this on top of the template and mark it from that. Essentially I'm making a template for the template.

So I got a small piece of scrap plywood, and drew a box in the center. The sides of the box are 1 1/2" long (I decided to increase the size from 1 3/8" to 1 1/2" to accommodate my forstner bits). Then I places a point at 3/4" on each side. I used that as the radius of the circles that comprise the arms of the quadrefoil. From that I drew a circle so I could see what it looks like:

Next I took an awl and punch  a hole right at that point:

And then drilled it on the drill press:

So now I have a template with four precisely drilled holes:

Here is a photograph of the template on top of one of the long sides of the cradle:

Biscuit the cat is of course supervising this whole thing...

Now for the hard part-the plans don't really give any guidance as to the placement of the quadrafoil so I took the plywood template and gave it my best guess and laid it on top of the pine template:

 Then I took my awl and transferred the holes in the plywood template to the pine template underneath:

I then took the pine template out to the shop and drilled it and this is what I made:

I can now transfer the design of the cradle sides in the photograph to each side of the cradle. I'm going to stop and have some lunch and when I come back I'll trace the cutting lines and the quadrefoil drilling holes to each side.

I'll be back with another posting shortly.

VW