My focus for today will be the upper side pieces, but I'll be working on other things as well.

I start by cutting off the excess along the top.  I leave a little wiggle room, but I don't need this much - that will just make planing and sanding harder to do.

I run these upper sides through the surface planer to thin them down and smooth the rough side.  I plane the lower sides as well so they end up the same thickness.

 This is a peek at how the pieces will relate to one another.  There is an 8 degree bevel on the lower edge (to lean the sides out), a 22 degree bevel on the top edge (for the roof), and the headboard and foot board lean outward at 8° as well, so almost nothing in these parts is square.

 I start withe the 8° bevel along he lower edge.  I use my electronic angle gauge to get it set precisely: 90° plus 8° = 98°.  That's easy. making sure I cut the boards so they don't both lean to the left, that's a little trickier.

I stand them up side by side and mark on the ends which way each board will lean.  This helps me make Sure I get it right.  It wouldn't make any difference, I could just flip one around, except I've already grain matched them to the upper sides and marked the parts for orientation.  Having to flip one around would mess that up.

With this much done I go ahead and drum sand all four parts to bring them down to the proper final thickness and make them smooth.  The planer leave faint wash-board waves that must be removed.

The knives on the surface planer are also getting dull and this causes chipping in areas of steep grain pitch.  I use a pencil to mark the pits and sand until all the pencil marks are gone.

Then I take a break and assemble the rocker parts with glue and screws, plug the screw holes, trim the plugs flush and do the final sanding.

I take this assembly into the finishing room and shoot the first coat of lacquer.

While that's drying I go back to the side pieces.

Using my template I trace the shape of the upper side piece onto the parts blanks.  The headboard leans back (out) the top slopes up from the back, and the roof is peaked, so there are many odd angles to cut here.  My big miter fence and some ingenuity with wedges come in handy.  Especially when it comes to cutting the 22° bevel on the top edge when the top is NOT parallel to the bottom, nor square to the back.

It takes a while, but I finally get it all done.  All that remains to do now is to sand the bandsawn curve to finished shape and I have a brand-spanking new oscillating spindle sander due to be delivered this evening, so I'll wait to do that till next time.  Besides, Marie wants to close the shop a little early and get our Christmas celebration going.

Thanks for watching, hope you come back next week, and a very merry Christmas to you!