Thread: WIP Recycled Aust Oak King Single Bed

Hi John the cleats in the photo are about 25 x 37
37 allows the screws holding the cleat to the rail to be staggered and the 25 provides enough of a shelf to support the end of the end of the slat.

I suggest you make the cleats as a pair, that way the dowels will line up

Nice going John.!!!

Good bicep building exercise with all that hand planing.

I used a similar method to position slats in a bed I made some years back- Ironbark by the way. My slats went horizontally.

Looking forward to the completed article.

I'm nearly done, there's really not much to do now...except I've got a little problem (well the OCD in me is telling me it's a problem anyway!)...

A king single mattress is 1060mm wide. I thought that I'd make the inside if the long runners 1100mm, giving me 40mm free play. So far so good. Except I forgot to allow for the bed brackets! So now when I mount the bed brackets right on the inside edge of the legs, I end up with a inside distance of 1140mm (80mm free play, or 40mm on either side of the mattress).

Make sense?

So I was thinking that I've got a couple of foreseeable options...

1) have exposed hardware (mount brackets on exposed side if runners) and use brass screws to mount them. Which prob won't look too offensive as I've gone for the rustic look.

2) mount the brackets, live with the 40mm either side, finish the damn build and move onto something else because this bed has taken a month longer than planned!

Oh, nearly forgot...had to make a modification to the brackets as the runners were 75mm & the brackets were 85mm. I hacksawed & filed 5mm of each end...good as new . Here's a pic:

Sort of like this?

don't do it that way (your photo)
mount the brackets on the inside and live with the extra bit of free space

whoever is making the bed will thank you for allowing extra space for the matress and blankets

It's finished!!

Here's what I ended up doing with the brackets. I went to our other single bed and pushed the mattress over until there was 4cm between it and the rail. It looked silly, so after a couple of cuppas', this was my brainstorm, and it works fine:

Attachment 221765

But of course, that meant another bracket modification so that they could fit "backwards":

Attachment 221766

And as a result, here is the finished product in place (including the new owners' little sister!)

Attachment 221772 Attachment 221773 Attachment 221774

What I ended up doing with the finish was: I followed the directions and epoxy'd followed by danish oil, and I decided that I didn't like the finish (I'm sure that it's my technique), so I rubbed it all back with some '0000' steel-wool, which resulted in a matt finish instead of a gloss. I think given the rustic look, the matt is better.

Now, back to the workbench

Looks great ..... I have enjoyed following along.

Neat solution to the mounting bracket problem.

The finished bed looks great.

John

in a few years you will look back on this bed with such a sense of pride and accomplishment that the trials you have gone through on the journey will be completely forgotten

congratulations

now you just have to stop them using it as a trampoline

Originally Posted by ian

John

in a few years you will look back on this bed with such a sense of pride and accomplishment that the trials you have gone through on the journey will be completely forgotten

congratulations

now you just have to stop them using it as a trampoline

Yes, I've already told her that if I find her jumping on it I will take it away. She even seemed impressed when I told her that the wood is about 100 years old. Now let's see if all that stays in her head!

What a great finish to the work in progress.