The Baby Cradle Project, continued: Finishing the parts for the cradle

Hi Everyone,

I only did a little work on the cradle today. I've finished most of the parts and I've sanded all of them smooth. Here's today's photos:

In my last blog posting I talked about making the rockers for the cradle and today I finished them. I'm in the middle of a head cold at the moment so I decided to just get out some hand tools and do the rocker finishing with those. I used a draw knife to remove the saw marks and a file to smooth everything down. There's something so satisfying about making wood shavings by hand. You can really control how much wood is being removed and I find myself much more engaged with the process than I am when I'm using power tools.

I also elected to leave some of the tooling marks from the file and the saw-I want my grandson and future generations to know that the cradle was constructed by a single individual and not in a factory. I hope this tells him that his grandmother really loved him a lot and was looking forward to the day when he was born:

And you can see that the rocker is nice and smooth:

 Here are all the of the pieces of the cradle (l to r): a crossbeam which is going to connect the rockers to each other and also connect them to the underside of the cradle. I'll talk more about that when I assemble the cradle in a day or two, and the end panels. These will have wrought iron handles fixed to them so the cradle can easily be picked up. I'm waiting for those to arrive:

More pieces (top of photo to the bottom): the side panels, the rockers, and the wooden "wings" which will be glued to the edges of the side panels (see below):

This is a photo of one set of wings being glued to the edge of one of the side panels. Each panel will have one long set of wings and one short set of wings:

The only thing I have left to make is the bed of the cradle and I'll do that later on this evening. You'll see that when I assemble the cradle in a day or two.

Well,  my head feels like it's filled with concrete so I'm going to stop and get some rest today...just like this guy in the photograph:

What's left to do: make the bed of the cradle, make the rocker assembly, attach the handles when they arrive, and then assemble the cradle. After that I'll apply the finish and the cradle will be finished.

See you tomorrow,

VW