Here is the king-size bed that I designed with Google SketchUp. It features tapered legs, Shaker-style panels, and a built-up cornice molding. The finish is gloss polyurethane. Everything is made of cherry, except the two side rails which are made of African mahogany. I started with Norm Abram’s queen-size bed design and went from there. The bed bolts make this bed extremely rigid. I put four box beams made of poplar between the angle brackets to hold up the box spring and mattress. This was necessary because king-size beds have two twin box springs slid together. I did all of the joinery by hand, as taught by the Woodwright’s School. I’ve found this method to be so much more enjoyable, as opposed to using power tools. The footboard detail was particularly challenging. There were a total of 46 mortices that had to be cut to accommodate the vertical slats. I used my brace and bits, followed by sharp chisels for all of the mortices. For the tenons, I used my back saw to rough out the cut, and then followed with my new router plane to make the joint as close as possible.
I got the bed bolts, the bed bolt covers, and the angle brackets from Leonard’s Antiques in Seekonk, MA.
http://www.leonardsantiques.com/
I got all of the lumber and plywood from Frank Miller Lumber in Union City, IN.
I bought some new hand tools for this project from Lie
Neilson Toolworks in Warren,
ME and Lee Valley & Veritas.
http://www.leevalley.com/us/?c=2
Here is the Google Sketchup file for the bed:
www.cs.wright.edu/~sthomas/bedframe4.skp
Here are some pictures of the finished product. You can see the angle brackets that hold up the box beams under the box springs.
