First day of Spring

September and the first day of Spring.  So we had a mixture of sunshine, heavy rain and hail!  What is going on with the world’s weather?

There’s hail in that liquid sunshine.

In between showers and under the shelter of the side veranda, I continued working on the bed base.

The lateral vertical partitions require timber runners to which the metal drawer slides will be fixed.  Apart from the end partitions, the runners are required on both faces of the partitions and to ensure they were correctly positioned I made a jig from scraps of timber.

 

Once one side was glued I tacked the ends in place with the nail gun and turned it over to do the other side.  Then I used the nail gun to fix the timber from both sides.  A combination of glue and nails should be sufficient.

The next state was to start assembling the carcass.  I really do needed to be careful here ensuring the side frames and partitions are square in all three dimensions.  I only have one borrowed clamp and no set square.  This was going to make thing tricky, until I remembered the rulers from the Parf Guide System.  I could use them and Pythagoras to square everything.

I made two 3/4/5 triangles on the top and then repeated the process on the bottom thus ensuring everything was square.

You can see the steel rulers forming the diagonal of the two triangles.  The end partition doesn’t have any plywood infill.  This is because it will be clad in a good quality timber, probably West Australian Jarrah which is a dark hardwood.

Using this method I fitted the remaining two partitions to complete one half of the bed.  I installed triangular blocks in the corners of the end partition to give it additional strength.

The drawers will be 750mm long and 470mm wide.  There will be two drawers in the end cavities and one large drawer in the middle.  Jan will use the centre drawer as an airing drawer for the laundry.  The contents of the drawers will be kept warm and dry from the heat provided by the water bed mattress.

I now need to duplicate this part to form the other half of the bed.  The two halves will then be bolted or screwed together to make a 5’6” wide bed base.  Why make it in two halves?  Well we have yet one more house move to make and having the bed in two pieces will make it easier to relocate.

Our Australian housepack should arrive next Thursday and having access to more tools should make the rest of this project slightly easier.

I’ve realised I also need to make a computer table.  Google SketchUp will again be my friend.  If it keeps raining I’ll probably design something this afternoon.