Bed for my son, Week end (several) Accomplishment.
Barry Irby
>The bed is walnut and in the rake or mission style. Made it of wood harvested a year ago from the family farm. Also made the night stand to match. The bed is queen sized. Asked him to send me the picture and he sent me a file that was 4.3MB. Thanks for all the help in cutting it down to size and my apologies for the fuzzy quality. One feature I particularly like is that the rails bolt into the head and footboard into barrel nuts concealed in the posts and the bolts come in from the rails, so nothing shows once the bed is assembled. I also made it so the bolts are "captive" and can not get lost. When the bed is disassembled there are magnets that hold the bolts retracted in the rails. The wrench for the bolts stays in a cutout in one of the rails. Once the bolts are snugged up, the frame is Very solid. The cross pieces are not glued into the head and footboard, but float in mortises and the pickets float in little mortises.
Re: Bed for my son, Week end (several) Accomplishment.
Re: Bed for my son, Week end (several) Accomplishm
Norb - Atlanta
>Barry, beautiful work, I love the style and the execution. Any chance you could elaborate on your rail to headboard system, where you placed the magnets/length of bolt, how you captured the barrel nut in the headboard, and so forth. I've got a couple of bunkbed frames in process and would love to get your insight (and pics if its not too much trouble).
Again, great work!!
Re: Bed for my son, Week end (several) Accomplishment.
>Durk, I started by asking here at WC if anyone had plans and someone referred me to Richardson�s site (http://www.richardsonbrothers.com/Collections.htm) and I printed out the picture of their Rake Bed in the mission collection. That was all I had for a plan. I tried to Dress it up a bit and I am still not happy with the top of the headboard. Wanted something with a bit more flair, in both senses of the word flair, but as we say in the South, there you go. I�ll try to explain the rail connection under Norb�s post below.
Re: Bed for my son, Week end (several) Accomplishment.
>Yes, walnut gives me a fit. I don�t know whether its related to age and just becoming more sensitive with repeated exposures, but I get a rash that seems to itch, but its painful to scratch. I finally have a lifetime supply of walnut that I harvested off the family farm and I breakout. I have to wear a tyvek suit, wear a half mask respirator, cover my shoes, and then take a shower when I leave the shop. Takes some of the fun out of it and kills the chance to �step into the shop for a few minutes�. I forgot to remove my watch one day and it got under it and took the skin off my arm.
The finish is a vinyl lacquer my friend uses in his commercial cabinet shop for kitchen cabinets. I was lucky enough that he finished it for me and did a nice job. If you really want to know I will press him for the exact name, but he buys it in 55 gallon drums.
Re: Bed for my son, Week end (several) Accomplishment.
>Norb and Durk, What I did vs. what I might have done. My original plan was to use French bolts through the legs into the rails. I was going to mortise a nut into the rail and drill a counter bored hole in the legs and put a Brass cover over it. I had asked on WC about the hangers that interlock from the rail to the headboard. EVERYONE that responded said to use the bolts. So did some of my other friends who build furniture. Then someone objected to the brass covers, saying they would not �go� with the mission style. I looked in a book on bed building I found at Woodcraft and concocted my plan.
I cut a mortise in the posts that receive the tenon on the rails. The rails were laminated out of two thickness of �� stock. The shoulder on the tenon was about a quarter inch and the tenon was a half inch long. Four inches back from the end of the rail, I cut a vertical slot in the rail about 3� tall and an inch wide. Before I assemble the laminations of the rail, I cut matching coves with a router that formed a half inch hole straight out the end of the rail for the bolts. In line with the hole, I cut a horizontal slot and inch wide and four inches long. This makes the cutout in the rail �T� with the head of the Tee vertical. The leg of the Tee allows for the bolt to be inserted and removed. In case the bolts get damaged, they can be replaced.
I assume my son will lose the bolts, so I made them �captive�. I cut a 1 X 4� block that fills the slot and installed a ceramic magnet in the ends of it. It fills in the leg of the Tee and the magnets hold the bolts in the retracted position when the bed is disassembled. I routed out a recess in one of the rails and installed several of the magnets. The wrench stays there.
Since this system was an after thought, I had to have a �nut� in the posts. I could not find �barrel� bolts or �dowel nuts� large enough so I made them. Bought a piece of �� steel rod and cut four two inch long pieces. Drill through them sideways and tapped the holes for the 3/8� bolts. I countersunk the entry holes in the roods to �funnel� the bolts into them. (Pretty much the limit of my metal working skills). Drilled �� holes into the sides of the posts center on the rail mortises and inserted the homemade dowel nuts. Once I had the bed bolted up, I put some epoxy in the holes. (oiled the threads in the dowel nuts and waxed the bolts so the epoxy would not stick to them) I had roughed the outside of the dowel nuts and filed a few notches in them to give the epoxy a bite. The idea was I did not want them to turn or float out of position. Then I capped the holes with walnut plugs.
If I had been doing this from the beginning, I would have laminated square nuts into the posts and not had to drill in from the sides and cap the holes. I would have used a square nut ant let it float about a 1/32�. Also, don�t for get to allow for the end of the bed bolt. Drill the hole a little past the back of the nut or dowel nut. The thicker rail allowed for the Head of the Tee to be routed deep enough to allow the wrench to turn freely without binding and �popping� the outer surface off. Also, I went to a lot of trouble to drill the holes �perfectly� for the dowel nuts and in the ends of the rails. �Perfectly� is an overstatement. I drilled them by hand as best I could. My dowel nuts were not perfect and neither were my holes. I switched them around and fiddled then into submission. Probably would have been better to drill the holes slightly oversized and bolt them up and let the epoxy take up the slack.
This is a place where a picture would have been worth at least a thousand words sorry to babble on so, but in the end, this worked great. The bed is Really solid. And my non-mechanically inclined son assembled it on his own.
Re: Bed for my son, Week end (several) Accomplishment.
Re: Bed for my son, Week end (several) Accomplishm
George@Colonel's Workshop-Havertown PA
>Beautiful work, Barry. Were those mortices hand chopped? Lots of work even with a machine. I really like the bed, but can't see too much of the end table. Do you have a pix of that somewhere?
George
Re: Bed for my son, Week end (several) Accomplishment.
Re: Bed for my son, Week end (several) Accomplishm
Barry Irby
>No, George they are not hand chopped, my middle name is �power tools�. There are 38 pickets in each end of the bed. One of the little discoveries in making it was that if you are off by a hundredth of an inch on each one, you end up about 3/8� off. So it was easy to get off, and I did. Had to have a �redo�. I also learned it was necessary to cut the top and bottom ones very precisely lined up or they got goofy looking in a hurry. What I did was use my radial arm saw with a dado blade. (Yes I actually use my RAS, I�m a heretic, or perhaps a lunatic.) I took a piece of stock and cut rabbets across it that were the width of a picket and half that depth plus a saw cut. I indexed the cuts by cutting a slot in the fence and sliding it precisely one space to the left. Then I just locked the piece is was cutting to the fence by putting a picket in the slot in the fence and the one in the piece. Then I ripped the strip and �folded� it and glued it together, forming square holes. Then I rabbeted one side to sit down over the top or bottom rail in the foot or head board. I rounded the edges and glued it in place. All the while, keeping the top one and bottom one together and oriented correctly. Made all four out of a single piece and cut them all at once. The top and bottom cross piece or rail in the foot and head board are not glued in, but slide into mortises and are held in by splines. The bottom one is captive, but the top one would lift out until the cap was installed. So I lifted the top and sat the pickets in place and then used all seventy two of my fingers and toes to keep them lined up while I tapped the top down with my free hand. (Actually, used masking tape to hold them.)
I will try to get my son to take a picture of the night stand. It�s like pulling teeth. Notice the fine job he did of making the bed. Check that quilt across the foot board. Perhaps that should be solid to avoid this
Re: Bed for my son, Week end (several) Accomplishment.
Until the sheet, blanket and spread get pulled out so there is no pressure on my feet. SWMBO likes it to look "nice". I prefer not to look at anything when I close my eyes.
George
Re: Bed for my son, Week end (several) Accomplishment.
>Thanks for the details. I think I've got it. Unfortunately, by posts for the beds are already glued up so I'll have to try to duplicate your efforts (as opposed to laminating in a nut). Any thoughts on using an allen head cap screw with a modified washer (think long and skinny - kept within the slot for wrench movement). I'm just thinking it might be easier to turn the bolt and keep the head from stripping. Thanks again for your help and again, the bed looks great. You should be very proud of your accomplishments!!
Re: Bed for my son, Week end (several) Accomplishment.
>Norb, If you mean a bolt with an Allen head that could be turned with an Allen wrench, it would work. I just can�t remember ever seeing one that long. Mine were five inches I think and 3/8� in diameter. 3 � or 4� would probably work just as well. I was designing on the fly and it worked. A 5/16� bolt might work also, but at some point you might have a bolt failure and the whole thing would crash. You mentioned bunk beds. They might be dangerous if the bolts failed. You could mortise in a square or rectangular hole from the side of the post and slip in a nut or even a plate you drill and thread. Then you could fit a matching plug in the holes. I just liked the round holes because I knew I could turn the plugs on the lathe. I used a �� rod for the �nut� because I wanted strength and �surface area� to pull against as the bolts tightened. I cut the slot for the head of the bolt and the wrench deep enough that the box end wrench could not bind on the head of the bolt and there was room for a washer.
OTOH: If you don't have objections to holes through the posts you could do them the old fashioned way and put the nuts in the rails and the bolts through the posts. I suggested using buttons or "domes" turned from matching wood over the bolts and gluing a magnet inside them to hold them to the heads of the bolts. We figured my son would lose them along with the bolts.
Re: Bed for my son, Week end (several) Accomplishment.
