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A new bed...

2K views 25 replies 7 participants last post by  Lazyman 
#1 · (Edited by Moderator)
My daughet wanted a new bed, with more space.
After some looking around we came up with this design.

Please, feel free to comment if you see I have designed something that will not work.
The bed will be built from beech.
The supports for the madrass will be screwed into the side frame (I did not include hardware in the drawing as it takes forever for me to draw it).

One thing that is in play is the size of the headboard. There is a window behind where the bed will be, and the lower part is at 76cm. The headboard will currently be at 85-90 cm with the current design. It will be the last thing to be buildt, so I may evalute different design for that later on.

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#2 ·
Tek, why not make a series of 6 boxes that will each house a drawer for storage for bedding paraphernalia. All you need is about 14cm for the height and divide up the length by 3 to get the size needed for each box. Depth would be about 56cm. No tools would be needed to disassemble it if she ever wanted to move into her own place. If she decided to get another bed later, the 6 boxes could be used as possibly a night stands or dresser or other type of storage. ............ Jerry (in Tucson)USA
 
#3 · (Edited by Moderator)
First, nice job on the Sketchup work.

Four suggestions:
- Include splines in the corner miters.
- Use steel bar or channel for headboard supports and eliminate the grooves (they just weaken the headboard and rail.
- Minor point - screwing all of the mattress supports will be a real nuisance and structurally unnecessary. Use notches or separator blocks to keep them in place and screw in only two or three to help stiffen the side rails.
- The leg mortise between the two counter top bolts will be very weak because the mortises for the bolts has cut away most of the support. Use some other knock-down hardware; maybe like this.
Or, perhaps only one counter top bolt would be enough down the middle with two M&T top and bottom.
 
#5 ·
The bed I currently have has a space between the mattress and the bottom of the headboard that my pillow constantly gets pushed in. That said it looks like yours has a break in it too, I'd suggest lowering the head board down
 
#6 ·
You might want to make the supports for the headboard a little beefier. For on thing, people often lean against it when reading in bed but probably more importantly, they often will try to slide the bed by pushing or pulling on the headboard. It is inevitable. I have seen more substantial headboards break this way.
 
#7 ·
Tek, why not make a series of 6 boxes that will each house a drawer for storage for bedding paraphernalia. All you need is about 14cm for the height and divide up the length by 3 to get the size needed for each box. Depth would be about 56cm. No tools would be needed to disassemble it if she ever wanted to move into her own place. If she decided to get another bed later, the 6 boxes could be used as possibly a night stands or dresser or other type of storage. ............ Jerry (in Tucson)USA

- Nubsnstubs
Hmm, that's a great idea.
Are you thinking freestanding boxes or boxes that are a part of the bed/mounted onto the bed somehow?
 
#8 ·
The bed I currently have has a space between the mattress and the bottom of the headboard that my pillow constantly gets pushed in. That said it looks like yours has a break in it too, I'd suggest lowering the head board down

- JCamp
I thinking about making the headbord possible to move up/down (not included in the drawing). The idea is that the lower part of the bedboard shall be adjusted to the top of the maddress. The madress is 20cm, so it's expected to prelude the bed by approximate 5cm, meaning that the headboard should be approximate 5cm above the bed freme.

I belive that will cause what you are describing to not be a concern.
 
#9 ·
You might want to make the supports for the headboard a little beefier. For on thing, people often lean against it when reading in bed but probably more importantly, they often will try to slide the bed by pushing or pulling on the headboard. It is inevitable. I have seen more substantial headboards break this way.

- Lazyman
I think this is a valid point.
They are currently 2cm x 6cm, and will be made out of hardwood, either bent using heat or by lamination.
I could add one more, so that there are three - or beef them up even more.
Any suggestion about how beefy/how many?
 
#10 ·
First, nice job on the Sketchup work.

Four suggestions:
- Include splines in the corner miters.
- Use steel bar or channel for headboard supports and eliminate the grooves (they just weaken the headboard and rail.
- Minor point - screwing all of the mattress supports will be a real nuisance and structurally unnecessary. Use notches or separator blocks to keep them in place and screw in only two or three to help stiffen the side rails.
- The leg mortise between the two counter top bolts will be very weak because the mortises for the bolts has cut away most of the support. Use some other knock-down hardware; maybe like this.
Or, perhaps only one counter top bolt would be enough down the middle with two M&T top and bottom.

- bilyo
Thanks. I'll add splines and do some changes to beef up the leg mortises so I do not get the week points.
I'll post some updated drawings for that.

For madress support I'm a bit back-and-forth on adding notches. I think I will screw down the one on each end and in center, and let them be connected by a band. Not sure if I'll buy or build them myself yet.
Thinking something like this:
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(costs 40USD on IKEA…)

On the headboard supports…
I'm not to keen on switching to metal. But I also got input on the risk of the headboard breaking from Layzyman, so you are several who is pointing on simular issue.
Any suggestion on how to design this strong enough and at the same time elegant using wood?
 

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#11 · (Edited by Moderator)
A couple of updated drawings…
(I see that the quality is quite bad, but that seems to happend when I upload the pictures here, they are OK on my computer)

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#12 ·
I kind of like the idea of making the headboard supports out of metal. If you do not like look of the metal, you might be able to figure out a way to dress them up with veneer or perhaps sort of enclosing them with wood somehow. I've never tried attaching veneer to metal so I do not know if that will work well or not.

One other thing to consider on the headboard design… You have the main part of the headboard drawm as 2 boards. Are those glued together to form a solid panel? If yes and with the end caps you have in the drawing, you may need to take into account wood movement. If you apply glue along the entire joint for example, the end cap grain running at 90° angle to main part of the headboard can cause trouble down the road. Once the width gets above about 12" wide, you have to use joinery that allows a little bit of movement for right angle grain directions. Look at bread board ends on tables to get an idea on how that is often done on tables. I am just not sure that the wedged tenons will allow enough freedom of movement.
 
#13 ·
I kind of like the idea of making the headboard supports out of metal. If you do not like look of the metal, you might be able to figure out a way to dress them up with veneer or perhaps sort of enclosing them with wood somehow. I ve never tried attaching veneer to metal so I do not know if that will work well or not.

One other thing to consider on the headboard design… You have the main part of the headboard drawm as 2 boards. Are those glued together to form a solid panel? If yes and with the end caps you have in the drawing, you may need to take into account wood movement. If you apply glue along the entire joint for example, the end cap grain running at 90° angle to main part of the headboard can cause trouble down the road. Once the width gets above about 12" wide, you have to use joinery that allows a little bit of movement for right angle grain directions. Look at bread board ends on tables to get an idea on how that is often done on tables. I am just not sure that the wedged tenons will allow enough freedom of movement.

- Lazyman
Ahh, thanks. That is actually a design error on my part. The sides on the headboard was actually ment to be working as breadbord ends, but I dropped the ball when I started to draw the wedged tenons.
I think you are absolutly correct, and I have to change the design.
Will have to think a bit about that. She (my daughter) did not want visible drawbore ends, so I skipped drowboaring as I'm a bit sceptical to do blind drawboring, especially as the blind side in this case will be only 1cm thick.

For the headboard support, they will be laminated hardwood, and I think that will work. I'll consider adding another one in the center. If it breaks I'll have to go buy some metal
 
#15 ·
- Nubsnstubs

Hmm, that s a great idea.
Are you thinking freestanding boxes or boxes that are a part of the bed/mounted onto the bed somehow?

- TEK73
[/QUOTE]
Mine are 6 individual boxes with 14"tall x 20 wide x 22" deep drawers. The spring and mattress lay on top of the boxes. they take up that dead space under most beds.
The design was if later I decided I wanted to build a bed like what most beds are, I would at least already have 6 drawers that could be used as night stands, or even a 6 drawer dresser if built right. You could even turn them into shop drawers if you had the footprint for it.
I built 2 sets of these. When I got divorced, the 'ex' got the walnut set. I kept the Oak. ............ Jerry (in Tucson)
 
#16 ·
Updated the headboard so to use breadboard joints instead.
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Could probably buildt the bed twice for the time used on drawings by now :p
Other stuffs going on, not much woodworking currently.
 

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#19 ·
Hi

I would really like some input on a practical issue.
The bed have eight tenon and mortise joints. Each tenon is 10/100/40mm.
I see two build alternatives going forward.
Opt. 1: do real traditional m&t joints
Opt. 2: create mortises on both ends and create 10/100/80mm dowels to use on both ends

I'll be using a router jigs to create the mortises, so creating 16 instead of 8 should be no problem.
Creating the dowels should also be easy.
Opt. 2 seems easier. It is also requires less lenght of the material. Does not mean much, but I need to do my choice before I start cutting
 
#20 ·
For option 2 are you talking about a loose tenon? If so, I do not think it will make much difference structurally. Do whatever is easiest to do.
 
#21 ·
For option 2 are you talking about a loose tenon? If so, I do not think it will make much difference structurally. Do whatever is easiest to do.

- Lazyman
Hmm loose tenons. Yup, thats it.
Thanks!
 
#23 ·
And there it arrived upon me why loose tenonis a bad idea for this build…
How the check should I go about to create a mortise in the endgrain of a almost two meter (6 1/2 feet) long plank
 
#24 ·
This build has started and some progress is beeing made. The first step is to go from rough sawn slaps to planks of the right saw.

I'm using the track saw to make that first straight edge that is needed before using a planer or other tools.

As my track saw is just one or two mm to small to make the cut all the way, i break/saw off the last mm and then flatten the edge using a hand plane.
Next step is to get it to roughly the correct lenght. Then rip everything to roughly correct wisth on the table saw.
Flatting one side on the planer and then rip to correct thickness on the band saw. That means ripping 30cm wide hardwood, but it went fairly ok.
Finally all is taken down to correct thickness on the thicknesser.

This produces a lot of sawdust/cutoffs - and I had a ton of issues with my dust collection system. It's just not able to suck enough from the jointer/thicknesser when doing 1-2mm full with cuts og 30cm, so the pipelines glogs up. It's a PITA!

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#25 · (Edited by Moderator)
I need some input.
I'm planning to round over all edges using a router bit.
This edge is a mitered join. How do I round over this edge?
If I use the router bit I expect that it would cause there to be a visible joint line in the middel?
Any other method I should use for this edge?
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#26 ·
I would just make a test corner from some scraps and try the roundover to see how you like it. The only way to avoid the seam is not not use a miter joint. I suppose that using more similar grain or even a waterfall corner might help make it less visible.
 
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