Project by AaronK | posted 07-28-2016 11:15 AM | 3058 views | 7 times favorited | 8 comments | ![]() |
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King sized bed. Primary wood is cherry, secondary is basswood and pine. Keys are lightly spalted rock maple. This was my first time dealing with large live edge slabs, and nearly half the time on this project was spent dealing with those – flattening, smoothing, etc. First time doing butterfly keys too.
The design is my own, sized to fit plenty of roll-out storage bins underneath, which will be a whole other project.
The headboard is ~16” wide and cupped dramatically while drying. I decided to use this piece anyway, since the convex outer surface would work well and be easy enough to process. But it required some smoothing out of the concave side, so I made a plane to accomplish that.
I usually come up with a little twist to the design midway through a project – some angle or curve that elevates things. Here, the posts for the headboard were originally straight, but I decided that the top half should be angled back a bit. So they are mitered at 5ยบ. That joint is reinforced with 5 biscuits (4 in the middle, 1 along the back like a spline) and a mitered butterfly key. The key really draws that joint tight and complements the keys in the slab.
Everything is screwed or bolted together for complete disassembly. the head/foot boards are drived with lag screws, and I made some false through tenon end caps (in end grain with sap/heartwood matched exactly to the board!) to cover those. They are held in place by rare earth magnets attracted to two sunken in philips head screws around the lag screw counterbore.
The slats are wormy basswood, kept in place with spacers and screws. The gap between them is 2.7”, which is sufficient to support the foam mattress. There are 3 center legs… overkill, but the whole bed is very solid – even more so than my previous metal bed frame.
Here are some more pics:
8 comments so far
luv2wheels
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39 posts in 2609 days
#1 posted 07-28-2016 01:09 PM
Aaron
Your project got my attention because I have some cherry and have thought of doing a headboard. I especially
appreciate all the construction details you included and will be saving this to my favorites.
A local woodcraft store had Robert Ortiz as a guest speaker recently an he brought a piece of walnut that had cupped. He had ripped the slab, jointed the edges, joined back together and only lost a little of the original thickness with a virtually invisible joint.
-- too old to rock & roll......
RogerM
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#2 posted 07-28-2016 03:08 PM
Love it! Nice design and effort.
-- Roger M, Aiken, SC
GR8HUNTER
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#3 posted 07-28-2016 03:16 PM
a very nice looking bed …..... will look even better after it darkens …....also good work on your butterfly keys …..... they look excellent ….....GREAT JOB ….......sleep well my friend
-- Tony---- Reinholds,Pa.------ REMEMBER TO ALWAYS HAVE FUN :<))
Mean_Dean
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#4 posted 07-28-2016 11:44 PM
Great looking bed frame! Never seen one with a live-edge slab, and I love it!
-- Dean -- "Don't give up the ship -- fight her 'till she sinks!" Capt James Lawrence USN
david38
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#5 posted 07-29-2016 02:04 PM
very nice
Ivan
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#6 posted 07-29-2016 07:27 PM
Life edge always gives a charm. Good idea with magnet covers.
-- Ivan, Croatia, Wooddicted
Dutchy
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#7 posted 07-30-2016 08:47 PM
Nice bed and ….covers.
-- https://dutchypatterns.com/
AaronK
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#8 posted 07-31-2016 11:44 PM
thanks for the nice comments folks!
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