Cherry Mission Style Platform Bed

Very very nice!

Very nice, that is a lot of spindles!

-- Bondo Gaposis

definitely worth it! – wonderful looking piece

-- Greg Simon

That is a lot of mortising. Turned out great but then I’m a bog fan of Mission style furniture. Are you planning to make matching side dressers?

What did you think of the Wood River mortising machine?

-- Earl "I'm a pessamist - generally that increases the chance that things will turn out better than expected"

I’ll be making 2 chests and 2 nightstands.

I read a lot of reviews and follow PintoDeluxe on here, and he was leaning toward the Steel City. This was one of the few that had a steel bed and fence. I think PintoDeluxe went with the PowerMatic, but it was over $100 higher, so the yankee in me, got to me. It’s my first mortiser, but i can’t say I’m disappointed. Went into the shop about 2 weeks after I got it and the gas shock had given up, but they replaced it without any issue, so that’s good to know.

-- Craig, Oklahoma

Gorgeous bed Craig! How long did it take you, from your first cut until the finish was dry?

I’ve got about 100 hours in it.

-- Craig, Oklahoma

EarlS, I went and read your Blog, and found it very interesting; and warrants more of an answer on the BenchTop Mortiser.

My first woodworking “machine” was a 1978 ShopSmith Mark V (which I still have, although relegated to minor duty). So, I’ve got a drill-press (of sorts). They have a mortiser attachment, but the table/fence are aluminum and will deflect. I knew that they would deflect an unacceptable amount to go this way. I tried to go with the Steel City, but with them being out of business, etc., etc.. I decided to go with the Wood River, which supposedly was made by Steel City. It seems to be a very beefy machine. I decided against the PowerMatic based on the price and the amount of mortises that I’ve cut to date, in my life.

It comes with 2 different gas shocks, of different lengths, and I had to use both for various mortises. I’ve got to find somewhere to store the shock that isn’t mounted, and I’ll probably forget where that special place is. It’s not a total loss, because I had the long one go out. The shocks hold the heavy motor head up, a scrap wood jack does the same thing. Like I said, I found that Wood Craft has the spare parts and did a good job of providing a replacement.

The legs on the bed are slightly under 4” thick. I planned a deep mortise (~3”) to set the spindle rails into. The chisel length restricted me to about 2.5”, but that was fine.
An item that I liked on your Blog, was the ‘why’. Since, I’m new to mortising machines, I wanted to know the process, and why. The book said that when mortising a wider mortise than the chisel, to drill holes that were spaced apart and then drill the connector hole. I found that the chisel was very hard to retract on a deep hole (even had to resort to persuasion with a rubber hammer). I found that drilling adjoining holes gave chips a relief and I didn’t suffer the binding.

Another item that I gave a lot of thought to, was how to ’index’ the spindles. I have 54 spindles in the headboard, or 27 on each side. Any error introduced by spacing spindles would telescope by the time I got to the end. I didn’t find anything in the manual, or any discussion online, as how to equally space mortises. I finally talked myself into not ‘indexing’, just measuring. I took an 18” steel ruler and marked a line every 1”. I figured if I got one off the next one would make up for it. I’m very pleased with the result, I can’t tell any variation, or even lean on any spindles.

-- Craig, Oklahoma

Nice job!

Great Lookin Bed

-- Jim, Kentucky