Thickening a rail

[Denis Kenzior]

I'm building a King size bed and currently going through the milling process for rails for the foot/head boards. These rails are to be 6-7" wide, and ~77" long, 1 1/8" thick. Two weeks ago I prepped the stock by jointing flat, planing oversize and letting it sit to acclimate.

No movement was detectable, so I went to rip a couple of boards close to final width, trimming a half inch or so. One of the boards must have had some bad internal stress, and got twisted about 1/4" out of flat. Too much that any final flattening will leave the board undersized.

I don't have any more thicker stock to remake the rail. But I do have some 4/4 material of the same species (sipo). Would it be advisable to re-flatten the original board, taking out the twist, then laminate a thinner piece onto it (perhaps leaving some room for final flattening)?

The original board was quite plain, so this might be an opportunity to skin it with some prettier material anyway. The design calls for a chamfer on one side of the rail (top & bottom), so this would aid in camouflaging the add-on piece.

[Wayne Lomman]

By all means add on a thickening piece. It will do what you have described. Cheers

[Frederick Skelly]

I can't think of a reason not to do what you're thinking.

I think I'd flatten the big one, then store both the big one and the thickener in the room you're putting the bed into for a couple weeks. Then check for flatness again and laminate.

[Lee Schierer]

If this piece is a rail, the 1/4" twist probably won't cause a problem if you can get it in place in the assembly. I would suspect that the twist will get worse if you remove more material.

[pat warner]

I would expect you'll use a ledger to support the box spring. Make that as thick as you'd like.
Next, clamp it to the twisted rail. See if that will flatten it.

[David Kumm]

I like making passage doors with two 7/8" pieces rather than one. I think what you are doing adds stability. I'd oppose the grain if flatsawn. Dave

[Ronald Mancini]

I would use a steel angle iron for the ledger if it is out of sight.

[Denis Kenzior]

Thanks for the responses so far. In my (admittedly still limited) experience with Sipo, most of the movement happens when a board is ripped. Not so much when jointed / planed. So my standard practice is to get a piece close to final dimension, let it acclimate, then bring it to finished size, dealing with any final out-of-flat conditions. I'm worried that even with my light-duty industrial planer, trying to plane a piece like this will not work too well. Additionally, I've yet to machine tenons on the rails, so even if the planing step succeeds, cutting accurate tenons will be challenging.

The bed is a european style platform bed, so no box spring. This is the lower rail of the headboard, so it will be load bearing. However, cosmetically it is not truly visible.

My only concern would be whether it is okay to laminate just one side, or should the lamination be balanced? I was shooting for a 3/8" chamfer. So the ideal combination would be 3/4" original + 3/8 addon.