Latest project underway-Platform Bed

[Fred Voorhees]

Right on the heels of the sideboard project, I got into my current project which is a platform bed that my Brother and Sister-In-Law asked me to build for their daughter, my Goddaughter Brianna.

They picked the "style" they wanted out of a catalogue with a few modifications. In the ad, there are two drawers on each side of the bed and four in the footboard area. Well, they intend to position the bed in a corner situation which would negate the use of two of the side drawers. They wanted four drawers in one side. That would prevent the two associated drawers for that same side, in the footboard to be eliminated for lack of space. Dummy drawer faces will be placed in that area for symmetry purposes.

The bed in the ad is a twin size, they also asked me to build it to "full" size which came to around 52" X 74" if I remember my notes out in the shop. I'm building it out of 3/4" oak veneer ply and solid red oak, along with 1/4" red oak veneer ply and plain jane 3/4" sandply sheets for interior parts of the base. Will be edge veneering plenty of oak ply in the construction of the headboard. Probably the most interesting piece in this project will be the "crown" at the top of the headboard.

Have been working on this much of this week due to an impending carpal tunnel surgery scheduled for this upcoming Wednesday which will put a crimp in any heavy work for a few weeks. I'm figuring I will still be able to do some light work in the shop on this project after a week or so.

[Jim Becker]

Nice progress there, Fred!!

Best wishes on the wrist-work next week!

[Don Bullock]

Thanks a lot!! Now my wife wants one in king size for our bedroom.

Seriously, that looks like a super project and I will have to make one for sure.

[Charles Wilson]

Just remember the "King" always should listen to his "Queen".

Chuck

[Paul Johnstone]

Nice idea.. Eventually I want to build a queen sized one.

My plan was to make the bed in two pieces (as if the headboard was split down the middle). Basically, I'd be fastening two sets of drawers at the back. The main reason for doing this was to make it easier to carry up the stairs.

I like the idea of putting drawers at the foot of the bed. I may change my plan accordingly.

[Daryl Brayman]

I'm in the process of building one now, in four sections. The stairs are so tight I couldn't get the box spring up stairs. So as I said I'm building it in four sections 30 X 40" each. Each section has a drawer 8" high, 24" wide and 24" deep. Once their all completed and stained I'll screw them together (in place) from the inside and insert the drawers.

regards, Daryl

PS: Nice looking start Fred, your further along than me.

[Howie French]

looks great Fred, I hope you continue to show more pics as you proceed.
Looking forward to seeing the completed project. As someone with 3 small
kids, I can see something like this in my future. Thanks for sharing

Howie

[Fred Voorhees]

Actually Howie, I am documenting this project with picture along the way. I haven't done that in a while and thought that I would like to add it to my web blog. So, I will be able to show the entire process once its completed.

[Paul Johnstone]

I'm in the process of building one now, in four sections. The stairs are so tight I couldn't get the box spring up stairs. So as I said I'm building it in four sections 30 X 40" each. Each section has a drawer 8" high, 24" wide and 24" deep. Once their all completed and stained I'll screw them together (in place) from the inside and insert the drawers.

regards, Daryl

PS: Nice looking start Fred, your further along than me.

So I assume you divided the bed up horizontally (side to side) .. That's a good idea that I didn't consider. That way the "footboard" doesn't have a joint where the pieces are jointed together. (The joint on the side of the bed is probably less noticable).

I think I will steal your idea.

[Fred Voorhees]

So I assume you divided the bed up horizontally (side to side) .. That's a good idea that I didn't consider. That way the "footboard" doesn't have a joint where the pieces are jointed together. (The joint on the side of the bed is probably less noticable).

I think I will steal your idea.

To be honest Paul - this base is one solid piece! Roughly 54" X 80". It is meant to fit a full sized bed mattress. It will be a monster to get down the stairs from my second floor shop, but it'll make it. It isn't so heavy that two guys wouldn't be able to manage it. And on the other end, it will be an easy carry to the bedroom of my niece at my Brothers home. Straight through the front door and right up the open staircase and over a railing right into the girls room.

[Fred Voorhees]

Well, here goes. It's been a while since updating this post on the platform bed. Guys, you may want to excuse some of the elementary explanations since the text will be used to illustrate the process to those in another forum not that familiar with woodworking. So, please bear with it. Because there would be lots of plywood involved, that would mean that there would be plenty of edges that would need to be laminated with the real thing. I had done this before, but that area within itself germane to this project had a few different options that would need to be dealt with. Also, the use of patterns/templates would be needed for a few things. These, too, I have also worked with in the past, but I looked forward to visiting that area of woodworking again to further my experience with them.

Overall, the project wasn’t a difficult one. Once I had the measurements of the full size mattress that they wanted to use, I laid out my drawings and worked from there. As it turns out, being that the bed was going to be a full size instead of a twin, it required the purchase of an extra sheet or two of plywood. For the love of just a few inches, but what are you going to do? With that being said, let’s get to the pictures.

Using my drawings and measurements as a guide, I cut out the oak plywood sides and internal structural pieces of plywood and laid out for the dados and rabbets that would go hand in hand with putting the base all together.

Using my handheld router with a 3/8” straight cutting bit, I routed out all of the dados and rabbets with the help of a clamping straightedge.

Once they were cut into all pieces, the dadoes, which were “stopped dados”, were chiseled to square up the ends to match the profile of the pieces that would be inserted into them.

Once that was all done, it was smart to do a quick dry fit to make sure everything fit together well and met the measurements that were needed. No, that’s not snow in my shop – it’s dust in the air. The camera’s flash really magnifies the particles in the air.

The picture of the bed that they presented to me had two drawers on each side of the bed. They were going to be positioning the bed into a corner situation which would negate the use of two. So, they wanted all four on one side. That was fine with me, but it did serve to eliminate the room for two of the drawers that would be in the footboard area.

I used a “drop down” method cutting the holes for the drawer openings in the side piece. I suppose that I could have also raised the blade into the wood as it sat on the table saws surface (it probably would have been safer!) but I used the fence as a guide to bring the wood down onto the raised blade instead.

[Fred Voorhees]

This is the result. The same thing was done with the footboard drawer openings.

I needed to switch over to my handheld jigsaw to finish off the openings.

There were going to be plenty of 90% angles in this base, so I fabbed up around forty of fifty of these little angled brackets out of plywood to add to each joint to add plenty of strength and rigidity. I am shown adding pocket holes to them all with my pneumatic Kreg jig. Each bracket would have two pocket holes. Each hole would put a pocket screw into each side of each 90% corner. Combine that with glue at each, and you would gain considerable strength.

It was time to begin to put it together.

The basic base structure is complete. It’s resting up on a side in this photo.

[Fred Voorhees]

With the base glued and screwed up, I moved on to fabricating the support frames for the drawers. I again turned to my pocket screw jig for quick assembly and you can easily see the pocket holes in these frame members. The screws go down in these holes and screw into the adjoining frame member, creating an “internal clamping situation”. The clamps shown act as a tool to keep the faces of the adjoining members perfectly aligned while the screws are drawn up tight.

I glued and nailed simple “cleats” to the insides of the drawer cavities to mount the drawer frame supports. The support frames then were added. In actuality, the bottoms were nailed in, but the tops needed to be loose yet to allow for further construction later in the process.

At this point, it was time to move on to the headboard. Again using hardwood veneer ply for these parts, I took the time to use low tack painters tape at the cut lines to help in avoiding any possible splintering.

[Fred Voorhees]

The top of the sides were going to be rounded and for that, I decided to utilize the first of two patterns/templates. Using ¼” hardboard, I cut out the dimension needed on my band saw……..

…….then sanded the curve to a smooth radius. Once smooth, I used it to trace the pattern onto my side pieces of the headboard. I then cut them out on my band saw, staying a bit proud of the line.

I then applied double sided tape to the template for the next operation. You can see I have already cut in my shelf dados also at this point.

You can see that a trifle bit of wood sticks out from the pattern. That is not a mistake.

We move to the router table. I have mounted a flush cutting bit and the bearing will ride up against the template/pattern, making a nice smooth profile on the top of each side. I have found that I much prefer to cut things such as this with this method than cutting out with a band saw or jigsaw and then sanding down to where I need to get it. It’s quicker and usually results in a much nicer finish that needs little sanding.

[Fred Voorhees]

With the sides milled up with their dados and their curves on top, the next job is to laminate a veneer of real oak on the exposed edge. I needed to cut very thin strips due to the fact that they would have to conform to the rounded top. I used this quick little jig to fab up strips of approximately 1/8”. I would run the edge of a piece of stock through the jointer and then butt the jointed edge up against this jig. I would then cut the piece, again run the now saw cut edge through the jointer and repeat the process.

I ended up with these five strips. I only needed four, but I cut an extra in case of any unforeseen problems and also for test nailing. As it turns out, I was better off hand nailing small brads than using my air brad nailer. The nailer had to much pressure and the thin veneer wood tended to crack under the pressure. I ended up gluing and hand nailing using the small brads, sinking the heads of the brads just below the surface of the veneer since it was only an 1/8” thick to begin with.