Captain's Bed, Done at Last!

[Mark & Juanita]

Short answer: Download the Excel file, it's there in excruciating detail

Long answer:

Coming up with the design, drafting it out, and being satisfied with the esthetics of the design: About 50 hours

Base frames and carcase construction (there are two of them): About 50 hours

Face frame and dust skirt construction: About 60 hours

Construction of a centered baseplate for my router to improve dovetail jig results: 5 hours

Drawer lumber dimensioning and glueups for 14 drawers: 30 hours

Drawer construction through scraping and planing for finsihing for 14 drawers: 92 hours

Drawer runner installation, milling drawer grooves and drawer fitting for

14 inset drawers: About 45 hours

Drawer finish (Danish oil and wipe-on poly, followed by 2 coats of wax) and face frame finish: About 30 hours

Base frame attachment to one another and installation of mattress support, installed bases in bedroom: About 10 hours

Building and installation of temporary headboard and footboard: About 10 hours

Building, finishing, and installing footboard: About 90 hours

Building, finishing, and installing headboard: 185 hours

Of which: Construct and finish lower panel assembly: 80 hours Construct all major rails: 20 hours Upper panel construction and finish: 50 hours Cross piece finishing: 5 hours Construct and finish posts: 20 hours Assemble and install: 10 hours

+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ If you're gonna be dumb, you better be tough +--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

[Upscale]

Looking at the log file, he built it over an 18 month period. If you consider during that time, he likely had to get tools and supplies out each time to continue, it's not all that unusual for excessive time to be consumed. It takes a hell of lot more cumulative time to build something when it's done on a piecemeal basis than when it's built mostly on a continuous stream.

[B A R R Y]

There's also hours in the log installing band saw guides and some other stuff that isn't really building the project.

But I agree that short sessions can drastically increase building time. There seems to be a certain fixed "overhead" associated with each session for setup, takedown, clean up, and getting the groove.

[Mark & Juanita]

Thanks. There is that too. Even if you don't have to put everything away, picking back up Saturday morning where you left off Sunday evening takes a little to get back into the swing.

+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ If you're gonna be dumb, you better be tough +--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

[Mark & Juanita]

Those things were directly related to the project. The router base was needed to improve the dovetail results. I specifically got the bandsaw guides to make sure I had the control needed to cut the curves on the headboard posts. The posts were too wide to shape with the shaper. Turns out the bandsaw guides didn't work as well as needed and I wound up using the shaper by attaching the template on both sides of the post. Some cleanup with a spokeshave was required, but it worked much better that way.

Shop cleanup, tool sharpening (arguably a part of the project since the project was responsible for dulling the tools in the first place), router guide, and Carter guide installation accounted for about 11:20 minutes of the accounted time.

+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ If you're gonna be dumb, you better be tough +--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

[Mark & Juanita]

That should have read 11 hours, 20 minutes

+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ If you're gonna be dumb, you better be tough +--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

[B A R R Y]

Doesn't matter, the bed looks great.