Little Seg's Crib

Early November 2009, one of the men in our Care Group at church approached me and offered to help me build a crib for our baby boy on-the-way. What's ironic is that I was planning on asking him if he would help me strip another crib of its stain and restain it, but that offer fell through a few days before. So, when he offered, I quickly said yes.

Like I said, we started about 3 months ago, and needless to say, the whole process took awhile. We began the construction by cutting all of the vertical slats down to size with this manly chop saw.

After all of the slats were cut, we rounded off the sharp corners with a table router. Very dangerous!

Here are a couple pics of what the slats looked like after we had cut them to size, routed the edges, and inserted dow rods in the top and bottom for easy assembly and added durability. I believe there were 44 slats in all. This is where we spent a lot of our time.


After we had finished the slats, we had to create the horizontal and vertical boards. Each of these boards had to be cut, routed, and sanded to perfection. In addition, we tapped holes into one side of each board for the slats to assemble into.

Next was the assembly of each piece of the crib. After gluing and inserting each slat into the top and bottom boards, we had to clamp each crib piece and let them dry overnight.


Overall, the crib had 4 pieces that we made ourselves.

Once each piece was complete, we assembled them all together using metal inserts and 2" bolts.

Now came the "fun" part. And by "fun" I mean "not very fun." Staining... We had to apply 2 coats of Red Mohagoney Minwax stain and then 2 more coats of Polyurethane to seal the stain. Here's the first coat of stain.

And the second...

And here's after 2 coats of polyurethane. All done!!


So after 3 months of hard labor, good talks, and Moody Radio sermons, we finished. Though it took awhile, it was a blast. I learned a lot about woodworking, life, and family in the process. Kevin, thanks so much for your help. I couldn't have done it without you. I owe you a cigar and a beer.

So Little Seg, here's your crib. Sleep tight!


Also, Misha recently posted some pictures of Little Seg's finished room. Check them out!