Furniture Dreaming: The King Bed - stage 2 : base construction (day 2)

So here we are at the end of the easter weekend, celebrating the resurrection of Jesus and what better way to cap off a great weekend than to spend the whole day in the workshop. Sunday was a write-off in terms of actually getting anything done on the bed as we had much to do around the house and a family BBQ, followed by church and then dinner and cards with parents in-law. Ok, you get the idea - it was a busy day. I'm waffling so I should probably get back on track.

I usually get caught up with wanting to rush through things and get to the end goal but cutting corners which ultimately gets me into trouble with stuff not lining up properly and being horribly out of square. I wasn't prepared to do that this time for a few reasons: firstly, my blog. you lot wouldn't let me live it down if I ended up with a dodgy bed. secondly, this will be our bed for many many many years to come and I wanted to ensure that it was rock solid.

to make sure everything was square and accurate I made a drilling template and used a numbers of corner clamps throughout the process. The drilling template meant that I could quickly clamp the template to the braces and run the drill press through it all. I also used a spur point drill bit to help keep the drill head move through material at an even rate and straight. I did spend a bit of time on making sure the template was accurate but the time savings came back when I started the drilling. The template combined with the drill press made life so much easier in that I had all holes drilled in a matter of minutes.

[use I did use vernier calipers to help make the template]

[I love my new drill press, thanks JSA]

[The bench setup]

[making sure each piece is level to ensure square drilling]

It's about now that I begin to lay everything out on the floor and prepare for the final bolting. Using a couple of corner clamps I got everything square (measured hypotenuse twice also in both directions) and hammered in a couple of braces to hold everything in place. I was worried about the squareness of the mitered ends of the main frame though as they didn't quote line up initially. Once it was all bolted together with coach screws though it became nice and snug and square.

[The outer frame resting on stud while I squared it all up]

[legs bolted on - ROCK SOLID]

With the legs in place I gave the frame a good testing by physically getting on top of it and jumping around. I'm pleased to say that this thing is rock solid and has ZERO movement in the joints. However, I was disappointed with the lack of strength of the central beam. I had to rebate out enough material so that the slats could sit across it. This was the direct cause of the lack of strength. The first thing I did was attempt to screw the cut out waste wood to the base of the support but I gave up on this idea after breaking 3 drill bits and 4 screws. Using the hand drill in the hardwood wasn't working out so well for me - a skill that I'm going to have to work on. The alternate solution was to use some more waste wood and create a vertical support that is directly centered to everything. Being that the bed is of a rough design I went with a setup that I saw yesterday while at a local picnic area. They had used a similar technique on the uprights around a gazebo, both stylish and functional. It's worked out ok for me this time but in future if I do it again I'll make allowances in the design and BOM (bill of materials).

[Central brace - not quite as I had wanted. you can also see the rebate waste stuck on the bottom of the main beam. what screws did go in and break have held enough to keep it there]

Slats, oh man what to do here? I went to bunnings the other day and had a chat to this really nice guy about all sorts of things and picked his brain about what to use. He suggested that I use pine stud (70x35) as its not only cheap ($2.06 per meter) but easy to work with and will last a lifetime. I had planned for a lot more slats than what I ended up using though, so I've got a bunch of left over wood. Not a bad thing but I will monitor the bed to see how it works out and add more slats if required.

[ slats are in, slug fit]

[yup, they all sit very flush with the frame. I surprised myself]

Before continuing I got out the old antique hand planes that I was given and gave all edges of the bed including feet the once over. I ran a 45 degree around everything to prevent splinters and fabric catching. The other thing that this does is prevent the wood from chipping and splintering as it is moved around, which is inevitable for cleaning. You can see the shavings in the picture above, mmmm the smell of the wood is so lovely. I've kept a bucket of off-cuts and shavings and am thinking of making some sort of bowl display with it - for the smell and the look. That is of course if I can get that past my wife :)

With the frame together I began working on the bed head. Unfortunately I only have photos of the main posts that will house the floor boards. As you can see below I've made some really nice channels in the posts. I'm beginning to get the hang of cutting channels like this with a circular saw. Traditionally something like this would be done with a dado blade but I don't have one and I've be a little hesitant to use one on a hand held circular saw.

I did get floor board insert pieced together and held in place with some rough waste stock. I'll need to nail it all down to some stud next weekend before I can mount it inside the main posts. It's really looking good and the final bed base has been moved inside and we'll get to see if we can have a solid nights sleep on it without it falling apart. Yes, i do need to grind the legs and wax everything but I'll do that another weekend (one leg at a time). For now though I want to sleep on it and begin thinking about the storage compartments underneath. Enjoy the photo's. (by the way, if you can help me identify the woods that would be greatly appreciated)