The Woodshop Shed

Simple Bed Design

Furnished content.
(from Lumberjocks.com)


So I had this idea of making a bed (queen sized) for my son. I wanted to do something interesting with the design, so I had this idea of making a splayed leg (like a spider). The problem is that in order to get the grain direction to go in the right directions at the right places, I couldn't cut it out of 2 pieces and join it (I actually tried that, dry-fit, and all the tenons broke :-)So I hogged out the material with the band saw & chisel, and created a loose tenon from walnut. I made the knee joint the same way. Dado'd out a space, and put in a loose tenon there as well.But I was worried that because of the shape of the leg, the glue joints would be under tremendous strain. I didn't want my son's bed collapsing on his dog if he was sleeping underneath.So I pinned both joints with walnut. The thought that if the glue joint breaks it will sag, and not collapse.I used mortised tusk tenons for connecting the rails to the footboard and headboard. My mortising skills aren't very good. I really did try to square them up (which I sort of did for the rail mortise, but the tusk mortise I got tired.For slats and center rail, I just used an old ikea slat/rail system I had laying around (yeah I know. Cheating. sue me.)I'm still not convinced that the structural integrity of this design will last. I'm curious to see how well joint expansion and glue aging hold up. the design is basically a big lever bearing the weight of the bed to try to pull the tenon out of the headboard/footboard.It was fun to do with my son, and an interesting experiment.Any thoughts?Mike

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