Draw curves by hand

Trust your instinct. Even if you have never been a great artist, or even a mediocre one, you will be able to draw a nice curve. Draw it on paper, cut out the shape, and transfer it to a piece of wood like you would use a stencil.

I do not consider myself an “artist”; I cannot draw like a good artist draws on paper. But I am pretty confident about drawing curves. I have shared in the past how I do it, like I did when I drew the curves on the cradle for our newest granddaughter (this link is to the article Why you must trust your eyes).

Curves on the back board

Curves on trundle bed

This 1:4 scale trundle bed pictured on the right is the “secret” small project I have been working on. Even the mortise and tenon joinery is close to scale. It is fashioned after the the bed in use by one of our granddaughters.

Now I must cut the curves, followed by shaping on the spindle sander and a bit of work with rasps. For joinery I machined tenons on the ends of the large back board, and cut the angles to allow dry fitting the entire assembly.

Now I can start thinking about the actual trundle bed that will go under this assembly. I have not decided what joinery that will have. Tiny dovetails, or tiny finger joints? I have already made one decision: The trundle bed will not have wheels!

What do you think?

Although some might question my desire to keep the joinery quite faithful to the real thing, I did not hesitate for one minute. The reason: I will make even smaller furniture, on commission. It will be just very much like the real thing.

Do you make toy furniture?

If you do, I would love to hear from you, the projects you have worked on, and how you tackled each project.

— Al Navas

Are toothpicks strong?

I wanted to try drawboring for the small project I am working on. Since I am using mortise and tenon joinery for this small piece, I did not want to have to rive 0.080″-thick “toothpicks” to use as the pegs. The more I thought about riving “toothpicks”, the more I liked the idea of using real toothpicks. Why not?

Toothpicks are great for drawboring in small projects!

Using toothpicks for drawboring

Before you say to yourself “…Al has gone bonkers…”, take a look at the photo on the right. I drawbored the 5/16″ x 5/8″ tenon into the mortise, using common white birch toothpicks I use in the shop. I damaged the tenon while pulling and pulling; the offset for the drawboring was 1/32″, as I wanted the toothpick to go all the way through the tenon, and almost to the back of the leg.

This joint did not have any glue. I used only one 0.078″- thick toothpick, driven through a 0.073″ hole I drilled using an eggbeater drill. Then I used muscle power to pull the tenon out of the mortise.

I feel better.

In addition to glue, I will also incorporate drawboring into the mortise and tenon joints. I call it extra insurance; I believe it is worth the extra time it takes to drill the holes in the legs, and the offset hole in the tenons.

What do you do?

Do you go the extra step when a small project will be used by little hands?

— Al Navas