Walnut Slat Bed
  • This was my first time using CAD for project design.  It has been a very steep learning curve, but it is worth learning.
  • Another CAD rendering w/o the mattress and box spring. 
  • The bed will be made from walnut.  This is my first time using walnut for an entire project.
 
  • 2/3/2007 Started working on the posts which are 2 1/2" square made from 12/4 walnut.  The tops of the posts were cut using a taper jig at the table saw and then sanded clean with a finish sander.
 
  • 2/10/07 Finished working on the slats and rails.  Tomorrow I will work on the joinery.  The rails were made using 1/2" MDF as a template.  I traced out a curve onto the MDF using a fairing stick (nothing more than a thin flexible strip of wood that is bent into the desired curve to allow a line to be traced).  I next cut out the template at the bandsaw cutting close to, but leaving the line.  The curve was taken to the line at the drill press/drum sanding attachment and finessed by hand using a flexible sanding strip.  The pattern was next traced onto the work piece and the work piece was cut close to the line at the bandsaw.  The pattern was attached using double stick  tape (carpet tape) and finished off at the router table using a pattern bit.  The same pattern was used for both top rails.  The foot board lower rail pattern was used only once.
  • Head board lumber waiting to be assembled.
  • Foot board.  In this picture the rails are NOT joined to the posts yet and NO glue has been applied to the rails-slats joinery. 
  • Floating tenons will be used for the rail to post joinery.
  • I forgot to cut the corbels out when I was batch cutting the slats so I will need to go back and make these later. 
  • Glue-up of foot board.  This was a race against the clock.  The glue I was using TitebondIII only has a 10 minute assembly time.  It was extremely helpful to cut spacers for the slat alignment (you can see some of them laying around in the picture).
  • 2/17/07   Both the foot and headboard are assembled.  I have also finished the corbels which will only be glued on.  This should be ok, because there is a lot of long grain to long grain surface to hold it.
  • I still need to finish the bed rails and sand, sand, sand.
  • 2/18/07  Finished working on the bed rails and the mortises for the hardware.  A ledger that spans the length of the rail was screwed on to both rails.  This will support the rails that will hold the box spring/mattress.  I used dowels in the ledger that go in to routed slots in the slats that prevent the slats from moving around under the box spring.
  • Mortise for the bed rail hardware.  The first mortise is really just an inlay followed by a deeper mortise for the hardware latch.
  • 2/22/07 Finally finished!  Finished with a couple of coats of Minwax's "Tung Oil Finish".
  • Just another angle.
  • Yet another angle.
  • For the center support I used a 2X4 that spanned the majority of the length of the bed.  I screwed 2X4 legs onto both sides of the main 2X4 support.  The center support is NOT attached to the bed, but stands on it's own under the box spring support slats.

Check out my Arts and Crafts dresser.