Somebody, likely, every wood worker, mentioned 'do the best you can, like it will be used a thousand years....' I believe this fake quote is an aggregate of several reading memories. It's a nice thought. Inspirational. Utterly, crock! Some things need to be banished and many are mine; but most are bespoke compressed rice hulls and sawdust furniture.
This design installment has to do with temporary furniture, because I am not going to let it sit around waiting for the next invalid. Nor, give it away. And, if I can salvage something of it, I will. So, I don't attempt to make temporary furniture permanent. If I can help it. However, this furniture is for Buster. Buster is an obese 15 pound monster that defies all reasonable expectations. I am afraid he will torment us with his presence for another several years. BTW, endearments are such that Buster does not really know his own Christian name. Being named after an old shoe is reason enough to forget.
![[Image: IMG_2710_zpst93neu48.jpg]](http://i1343.photobucket.com/albums/o794/hbmcc/IMG_2710_zpst93neu48.jpg)
]The Monster[/url] Cataract fog looks almost as bad as red-eye, pumpkins in this case.
PhotoBucket is no longer....
Guess who.....??? Worse than a cat with 9 lives....
This installment is almost a construction article. Construction articles (in magazines) are all the same, follow the same formula. So don't think this will be one too.
A while back we noticed Walking T**d was leaping short of the 2-ft mattress height. Bouncing off the side of a mattress is entertaining until the vet bill lands on the checkout counter. A few bucks and smashed fingers are cheap insurance. So, steps.
These steps--there are two--are of commercial pine, 1 x 12 by a little over 12 feet. I need 20 feet. The finished size is 30"W x 20"H x 13"D. No fancy joints. Just butts, glue and exterior finish nails. [To make salvage easier.] After some fancy CAD design, the back is ripped/cut on bias from a 4-foot section, the cutoff swung back, edge glued, everything diced and cleaned up. If you want the plan, wait for the construction article. The rest of the pieces (11) are glued to the back "in the air". Or, as someone told me in another life, "by coincident alignment". I probably should not have used slippery glue. Clamp-and-nail works, too. Better yet, strategically placed dadoes and rabbets at the tread nosing, ignoring salvage, is the way to go. Steps are 5"Riser:7"Tread. These numbers vary for the bed and pet height, and why I won't release the backboard plan.
Design- We've beaten permanence. No, we can't beat a dog who protects the house from under a bed. Dog stairs get pretty elaborate. We even had one of those kits from the charity used store, that had lost and was losing parts. Bespoke sawdust. I did a lot of dimensions in CAD. I failed to actually twist arms, clamps and the occasional piece of wood with its time clock of dripping glue during the CAD phase. Thus, in the air wizardry. I was really lucky the first time. Not so good on steps 2, which I thought would be a piece of cake.
The steps are as compact as I can make them, and not turn them into some elaborate obnoxious sprawl on a warehouse floor. The inspiration was Japanese tansu, in stairs. Then it was a matter of fine tuning the design, and cutting and fitting pieces from 4-foot lengths of wood. The cutting plan included four lengths of 4-feet, but three would work if the bumper board (bottom cap piece) came from another scrap. And, I didn't screw up. Home Despot had 3x5 edged carpet in an acceptable color. Two-inch double back carpet tape at all edges and corners does pretty well to keep down the carpet. Pounding the carpet into and over corners to crease the backing is important. I finished all surfaces of the wood with polyurethane (satin clear).
I used a combination of frustrations while finishing the first set of steps. The most irritating was building first, then stuffing my face into cavities with a paint brush, rag, sandpaper, and finally, finger nails to remove stuck bugs and debris. For the second set, I used a Badger model sprayer to lay down Transtint dye instead of mixing it with shellac and making a mess. Pre-spraying dye and wiping/painting several coats of poly worked well enough but I had cut all the parts to spare my saw blade. Next time everything will be finished then cut. The blade can suffer.
![[Image: IMG_2697_zpsyvbxx20l.jpg]](http://i1343.photobucket.com/albums/o794/hbmcc/IMG_2697_zpsyvbxx20l.jpg)
Goodbye, Photobucket....
Finally, be sure to use a story-stick when doing take-offs for copy work. An eighth-inch short is firewood. Then, the pre-finish work is suspect. I even forgot one of the eleven pieces. I blame finish fumes and first of summer heat for the errors. Next time? Nah...
After 14 years of persuasion and bribes, I knew a hand full of peanuts would get Buster up the steps.
![[Image: IMG_2711_zpsmcpfnu9i.jpg]](http://i1343.photobucket.com/albums/o794/hbmcc/IMG_2711_zpsmcpfnu9i.jpg)
This design installment has to do with temporary furniture, because I am not going to let it sit around waiting for the next invalid. Nor, give it away. And, if I can salvage something of it, I will. So, I don't attempt to make temporary furniture permanent. If I can help it. However, this furniture is for Buster. Buster is an obese 15 pound monster that defies all reasonable expectations. I am afraid he will torment us with his presence for another several years. BTW, endearments are such that Buster does not really know his own Christian name. Being named after an old shoe is reason enough to forget.
![[Image: IMG_2710_zpst93neu48.jpg]](https://www.forums.woodnet.net/%5Burl=http://s1343.photobucket.com/user/hbmcc/media/IMG_2710_zpst93neu48.jpg.html)
]The Monster[/url] Cataract fog looks almost as bad as red-eye, pumpkins in this case. PhotoBucket is no longer....
Guess who.....??? Worse than a cat with 9 lives....
This installment is almost a construction article. Construction articles (in magazines) are all the same, follow the same formula. So don't think this will be one too.
A while back we noticed Walking T**d was leaping short of the 2-ft mattress height. Bouncing off the side of a mattress is entertaining until the vet bill lands on the checkout counter. A few bucks and smashed fingers are cheap insurance. So, steps.
These steps--there are two--are of commercial pine, 1 x 12 by a little over 12 feet. I need 20 feet. The finished size is 30"W x 20"H x 13"D. No fancy joints. Just butts, glue and exterior finish nails. [To make salvage easier.] After some fancy CAD design, the back is ripped/cut on bias from a 4-foot section, the cutoff swung back, edge glued, everything diced and cleaned up. If you want the plan, wait for the construction article. The rest of the pieces (11) are glued to the back "in the air". Or, as someone told me in another life, "by coincident alignment". I probably should not have used slippery glue. Clamp-and-nail works, too. Better yet, strategically placed dadoes and rabbets at the tread nosing, ignoring salvage, is the way to go. Steps are 5"Riser:7"Tread. These numbers vary for the bed and pet height, and why I won't release the backboard plan.
Design- We've beaten permanence. No, we can't beat a dog who protects the house from under a bed. Dog stairs get pretty elaborate. We even had one of those kits from the charity used store, that had lost and was losing parts. Bespoke sawdust. I did a lot of dimensions in CAD. I failed to actually twist arms, clamps and the occasional piece of wood with its time clock of dripping glue during the CAD phase. Thus, in the air wizardry. I was really lucky the first time. Not so good on steps 2, which I thought would be a piece of cake.
The steps are as compact as I can make them, and not turn them into some elaborate obnoxious sprawl on a warehouse floor. The inspiration was Japanese tansu, in stairs. Then it was a matter of fine tuning the design, and cutting and fitting pieces from 4-foot lengths of wood. The cutting plan included four lengths of 4-feet, but three would work if the bumper board (bottom cap piece) came from another scrap. And, I didn't screw up. Home Despot had 3x5 edged carpet in an acceptable color. Two-inch double back carpet tape at all edges and corners does pretty well to keep down the carpet. Pounding the carpet into and over corners to crease the backing is important. I finished all surfaces of the wood with polyurethane (satin clear).
I used a combination of frustrations while finishing the first set of steps. The most irritating was building first, then stuffing my face into cavities with a paint brush, rag, sandpaper, and finally, finger nails to remove stuck bugs and debris. For the second set, I used a Badger model sprayer to lay down Transtint dye instead of mixing it with shellac and making a mess. Pre-spraying dye and wiping/painting several coats of poly worked well enough but I had cut all the parts to spare my saw blade. Next time everything will be finished then cut. The blade can suffer.
Goodbye, Photobucket....
Finally, be sure to use a story-stick when doing take-offs for copy work. An eighth-inch short is firewood. Then, the pre-finish work is suspect. I even forgot one of the eleven pieces. I blame finish fumes and first of summer heat for the errors. Next time? Nah...
After 14 years of persuasion and bribes, I knew a hand full of peanuts would get Buster up the steps.
