Following up from a post on the 29th December 2011 I am pleased to say that my oak beam bed frame is now completed! I have a few pictures to share of the build and a brief run through of what to picture are.
The 3 pictures you see above are what the oak was like before I began working on it. 150x150 beams and a 35mm thick waney edged board I found and used for a head board. In the last image one of the oak beams releaved some amazing medullary rays (silver grain) once it was sanded down.
The timber rails joining the foot frame of the bed to the head board frame were Ash in stead of Oak. I went for a change when I saw this was available to me and the grain patterns were unreal! I was glad I used this once I saw it. The foot end of the bed was sat on top of 300mm legs which were fixed using mortice and tenons. These were fitted tightly in place and an oak peg was used to hold the joint together.
The last image is to show the design of the bed and to test fit the joints which are mortice and tenons.
The head board joining was hand cut using a tounge and groove fixing method. Once the pegs were driven into the frame joints it pulled the frame tight together sandwiching the head board tightly in between the upright posts to make up the head board frame as seen in the second image of these three.
The last image is the bed frame joint work completed and fitted together. No pegs have been driven in yet so the frame can be taken apart to easy moving. The jobs left to do was to groove out the Ash rails to take for the mattress and pine bed slats. I used pine for a bit of give and flex for under the mattress.
I used 12 slats in total. Each one was 25mm x 100mm spanning the width of the bed frame. This easily supports the mattress with no sagging what so ever.
I gave the whole bed frame a danish oil finish to protect it and to bring out the beauty of the oak and ash.
Sleeping in the bed after getting it home was fantastic. It is as I wanted it to be. A solid, sturdy bed that looks different to anything else. The large beams dwarf everything else in the bedroom and makes a real presence in the room. No movement, no creaking from loose joints and no sleeping in a bog standard bed. Perfect!
From the 6 year dried oak beams to the finished bed frame was all hand made. All joints were worked out and cut by hand. The mortices were cut using a drill and chisels then everything knocked together using a rubber mallet. A belt sander and a drill were the only power tools I used for this whole build. Creating and making something by hand is extreamly rewarding. So happy with this!
