Thread: Keeping the bed bugs away: A Camphor Bed

looks good mate.

i would definetly sand to at least 800 grit. danish oil and a coat of u beaut trad wax would be great.

you know craig is a member here right? great bloke.

Love the headboard... when you oil (if oiling) that thing it will leap out at you. As Carl said, sand to 800 but then wipe over with a damp cloth, let dry and sand again at 800. Do this a few times to raise the broken fibres from the cutting and sanding and your finish will be flawless )if you went through the previous grits properly).

Corbs

Originally Posted by GreenCut

Hi everyone,

We also wanted the bed timber to be fairly sustainable, and we found a brillinat place for just that (Eco Urban Timbers). We had a friend with some tools and a work ute, so off we went-a-timber shopping. The proprietor (thanks Craig!) was very helpful, and in the end we chose to cut our timbers from a lovely Camphor log that was sitting in one corner of the shed.

The timber was orbital sanded with 400 grit, but after a few weeks (went overseas), the grains had popped up again. So before sanding, we'll have to sand them back again. I will then use some 800 grit by hand, before putting on two coats of Danish Oil. (that's the plane anyways )

Am I reading the above correctly? The timber was cut from a log for you and then you commenced the construction of the bed.

If so I suspect there is still some moisture in your timber and the grain will continue to pop until your timber is dry.

Kev- Nah, the log was already cut and dried into slabs, but put back together on pegs, like a giant layerd cake We've now done two coats of Danish Oil, and two weeks after the second coat, it's still nice and smooth.

weisyboy - Yeah, I know Craig. Good fella. In fact these forums is how I found him!
Also, what will the traditional wax add to the two coats of Danish Oil? Would it rub off onto the bed sheets?


Ok, so the latest update: Everything now has two coats of Danish Oil. We might not have done it properly, but what the hey, it's our first go at "serious" woodworking, eh?

After sanding with 800, we applied the oil with a rag, let sit till it got a bit tacky, then buffed it with a cloth still a bit damp with the oil. After about a week, we sanded with 400, then 800, and then applied the second coat of oil with 800 wet/dry sandpaper. We buffed again with a oil-damped cloth. Oh, and I made little plugs which matched the direction of the grain to cover up the screw holes (see pic). Pretty much filled the hole up to about 2mm from the surface, then cut a thin layer of camphor, from which the plugs were cut with scissors, and glued in before being sanded down. Then the oiling fun began!

So some piccies:

First one is of the two rails, showing the difference between oiled and non-oiled camphor, and a great set of legs...
Second and third ones are of the foot and head boards, respectively. I love the patterns that came out on the footboard.
and fourth is a closeup of the headboard top ledge, showing the lovely irradescent grain, and one of the plugs (bottom leftish corner)

Now all I need is to find some cheap slats for the bed. Went to Brett's but all they could offer me were $4/m pine slats. Considering I want to have no gaps in my slats, that would be a bit too much for my liking. Anyone have any ideas of where I could locate some cheaper alternatives?

Thanks!

All looks great. It is a lovely looking peice.

Why dont you want gaps between the slats? I remember once having ply under our mattress, after a while, it developed mould on it. Slats with gaps are good, as they let your mattress breathe. If you are worried about strength, make sure you put an "on edge" support down the middle under the slats.

Donna

That's impressive. I particularly like the way you've integrated the "slab look" into the bedhead.

'Tis going to be glorious once finished and will certinly give the bedbugs a headache.

Greenie inbound!

Originally Posted by flynnsart

All looks great. It is a lovely looking peice.

Why dont you want gaps between the slats? I remember once having ply under our mattress, after a while, it developed mould on it. Slats with gaps are good, as they let your mattress breathe. If you are worried about strength, make sure you put an "on edge" support down the middle under the slats.

Donna

Thanks!

The solid set of slats idea was really borne from having to put our latex matress on the floor while we do the bedframe up. We noticed a difference in the comfort once we were on the floor, so I figured that the gaps must be somehow translating through (jokes about peas and princesses aside), or perhaps that the gapped slats were bowing, in which case having solid slats would distribute the weight of us and the matress more evenly and hopefully avoid the bowing. - Would that be incorrect thinking?

I think you are going to need the slats for the previously mentioned reason (airflow). Perspiration from bodies and the wood underneath sweating will cause mould in the mattress. Go with thicker hardwood slats if you need the support but I am pretty sure we have about 140x19mm hardwood slats on our Queen and it works fine.

Hi Seweryn, thanks for the kind words, but the credit's all yours. The bed looks fantastic.

If you're after slats, I believe I've got a stack of offcut 100x19 that would be OK for the job. Drop around and you can fill up the boot. It'd be a shame to use pine.

After some time off to let the Danish Oil coats de-stink, we got ourselves into gear, and took Craig up on his kind offer of hardwood floorboard offcuts to use as slats.

We had to assemble the bed in the bedroom, so we were forced to commit to finishing it before we could go to sleep, much to the displeasure of our neighbours, since we finished the final cutting of the slats around 10pm on a sunday evening!

We ended up fixing the rails in place with angle brackets so that we could dissasemble the bed at a later date, and kept the slats in place with a screw on each side.

So here we are, the finished product! Very strange sleeping now "at elevation" after so many months of sleeping on the floor!

that looks pretty cool

Great finished job... did you end up putting wax over the oil? The wax will help stop finger prints and dust sticking to the wood. It also feels nice

I thought about putting down the wax, but in the end, we were getting sick of sleeping on the floor, so it ended up being just two coats of oil. Mind you, the finish is better than I expected. It feels like a silky smooth plastic surface!