Making the Bed continued-Working on the Mattress Frame

Hi Everyone,

Well, I went and picked up some extra lumber that I forgot to purchase when I began the project:

Time to get to work-let's get started!

I decided to fit the frame to this bed exactly so it fits the foot and head boards and to minimize any movement in the corner joints. So the first thing I did was screw the two 2x4s in place (and helping out today is Jim Woodcock-I'm recovering from a rib injury and it would probably take me forever to finish this alone. And he's an engineer and can make stuff fit perfectly). These will be the basis of the frame and also give me a platform for putting the frame together.

Here's the photos:

The bed frame and indeed the entire structure needs to be square so we began by squaring the head and foot boards with the floor. For this a carpenter's square is required:

Next we checked to make sure the 2x4 rails were squared up to the head and foot boards:

Then I screwed the 2x4s in place-note the bed rocks a little from head to foot at this point:

And this is what the structure looks like:

 

Next, the plans call for a 1x6x75" pine board to placed over the long face of the 2x4 rail. This acts to hold the mattress in place and it will eventually be screwed to the legs of the foot and head boards to help stiffen the mattress frame joints. In the photograph you can see one of the 1x6s clamped in place:

Now the screws that I used to attach the 2x4 to the bracket protrude slightly and would push the end of the 1x6 away from the surface of the bracket so I'm going to drill a small hole through the 1x6. In order to get the placement of the hole correct, I clamped the board in place and gave it a whack with a mallet and created a small indentation which will allow me to drill the hole exactly:

To avoid tear out, we clamped the 1x6 to a piece of scrap lumber and I drilled the hole with 1/2" forstner bit:

And I got a nice clean hole:

And here is the board in place and ready to be screwed to the 2x4:

I'm going to stop for today and pick up with this tomorrow. I'll attach both face boards and then cut the slats and screw and glue them in place. At that point the construction will be finished and all that will be left is applying the finish and then disassembling it and transporting it to my young friend's home for assembly and finish photographs.

Stay tuned-almost finished,
VW