Raised Panel Bed

Here are some photos and descriptions of my most recent project-a raised panel bed that I made for a friend's son.  The well-lit, sharp photos are courtesy of my beautiful wife, and the grainy dark ones were taken by me.

  I got the red oak for this project at a local lumberyard.  Most of the material was 8/4 (originally 2" thick).  I did use some 12/4 (originally 3" thick) material for the posts and a little bit of 4/4 for the panels and the top decorative pieces.  The lumberyard had 8/4 and 4/4 in the "showroom," but I had to call ahead to have them prepare the 12/4 piece for me.  All the material was surfaced on two sides and one edge at the lumberyard.  The 8/4 was down to about 1 3/4 (8/4 is what would typically be referred to as 2-by-? material at Home Depot, which is actually 1 1/2 inches thick), the 4/4 was 13/16 and the 12/4 was about 2 3/4.

 

Since the material was surfaced on a commercial planer, it wasn't incredibly smooth, and there were still some imperfections and low spots, so it definitely still needed to be planed.  I was originally planning on getting the 8/4 down to 1 1/2 inches thick, but since it started out as 1 3/4 and I was only taking 1/32 off each pass through the planer, I decided to stop when the surface imperfections were removed, which left the material just under 1 5/8.  I think I emptied the 5-gallon dust bucket about 10 times during that process.

 

 Yes, those are prescription ANSI approved safety glasses by 3M.  

After the flat surfaces were planed, I checked the surfaced edges to make sure that they were square to the faces.  Usually, the first step is to surface an edge, then surface a face square to that edge, but that's if you have a jointer, which is one tool that I lack.  Of course, on most pieces, the edge was not square to the faces, so I had to joint (surface) the edges.  I will likely get a hand jointer plane sometime in the not too distant future, but for this project I used a power hand planer with a jointer attachment that sits up against the face of the board to ensure that the cuts I was making were perpendicular to the faces of the boards.  I would say that the material preparation was probably about 1/4 of the total project time.

Once the material was surfaced and squared, it was time to cut the pieces to size.  I started with a list of all the pieces that needed to be cut, then laid them out on each board to make sure that I avoided any cracks, knots, or other flaws.  Then, I made a plan of the order in which the pieces were going to be cut so that I could minimize the number of saw set-ups.  For instance, in the top picture to the

left, there is a stack of 6 panels in the left corner.  3 of them were 10x10 and 3 were 10x12.  Since all 6 had one 10-inch dimension, I set the table saw fence to 10 inches one time and cut that dimension on all of the boards containing those 6 pieces.  That way, even if my cut was not exactly 10 inches, all of the pieces were consistently the same width.  Similarly, I set up stop blocks on the miter saw for dimensions that were used on multiple pieces.  Though precision is very important, consistency is often more important, particularly when it comes to assembly.
By the way, this is what the "bed" looked like 12 days before it had to be completely done and in a moving truck bound for a destination 600 miles away.  I had my work cut out for me-no pun intended.

Next up was shaping and smoothing.  I started with the router table to cut the profiles on the rails and stiles (pieces that hold the raised panels-photo at left).  The raised panels sit in the groove that's running down the right side of the piece in the photo, and the tongue that's on the end of that piece is glued into a similar groove in the piece that it is attached to.  Next, I routed the large cove in the panels to raise them (bottom left photo).  That is one big router bit that's used for that-it's over a 3" diameter.

All of that routing-particularly to raise the panels-removes a lot of material.  This is the pile of dust it made, just from routing the rails, stiles, and panels-and that was with the shop vac hooked up to the dust collection port on the router table fence. 

After shaping those pieces, I had to prefinish the panels since they float in the grooves.  Prefinishing ensures that there won't be any exposed unfinished surfaces if the panels shift or move with changes in weather.  It is important that the panels are allowed to float so that they can expand and contract with changes in weather, and the finish also helps to repel any glue that may squeeze out from the joints onto the panels during assembly.  Before assembly, I also laid out and cut the loose tenon joints (two on each side as seen in the photo -more detail on those below) that would later be used to attach the pictured assembly to the posts.  This piece in the picture is the main part of the footboard.  Also before assembly, I did the initial smoothing of the pieces with a No. 4 smoothing plane and a cabinet scraper. 
 

For the loose tenon joints, I used the Beadlock joinery system.  It's basically a jig for a portable drill that allows you to drill a series of overlapping holes (left photo).

You drill the holes in the two pieces that you want to join, then glue the Beadlock tenon stock (in this case, 1/2" thick, 2 1/2" long) in one piece.  To complete the assembly, put glue on the protruding tenon, then insert it into the other mortise-this should be so tight that it requires some whacks with a rubber mallet.

The posts got the corners rounded over on the router table, then a cove in the middle on the front outer edge (detail in the next photo).  I also rounded over the bottom edges.  Then I had to make the mortises for the bed rail hooks before finally assembling the posts to the main part of the footboard.  The posts ended up about 2 5/8" by 2 1/2".

This is the headboard.  The only difference from the footboard is that the panels are 12 inches long instead of 10, and the bottom rail is much wider-about 11 1/4" as opposed to about 3 1/4" on the footboard.  Here you can see the mortises in the posts that will accept the bed rail hardware.

A close-up of the mortise for the bed rail hardware. 

This is the bed rail hardware.  The female end gets attached the posts and the male end to the rails.

Finally with the rail edges rounded over and the cleats for holding the slats attached to the rails, it was time for the test fit before final sanding and finishing.  Everything fit together tightly and the whole bed was very solid.  Also notice the decorative piece on top of the footboard and headboard.

2x6 slats were then cut to fit between the rails.  I used brad nails to fasten small spacers between each slat so they wouldn't slide around.  This construction allows for the mattress to be placed directly on the slats, without a box spring.

After the fit test, all parts were sanded with 220 grit sandpaper, then stained with a water-based "Rosewood" color stain.

The bed was stained late one Tuesday night, and the family that I was making the bed for was going to be moving 600 miles away on that Friday.  I also still needed to apply the clear finish-nothing like cutting it close.  I applied two coats of wipe-on poly on Wednesday, then lightly sanded Thursday morning and applied a third coat.  That night, I lightly sanded the most visible sides and applied a fourth coat to those.  I delivered the bed Friday morning about 10 minutes before the moving truck arrived.  So you might say I had it done early.