Round Pegs, Square Holes, and Something that Looks Like a Bed

Over the past week, in addition to some repairs to the chair, my efforts were focused on the bed, and making it a bit more, well, bed-like.

Martin and Jake brought over the Mortising machine on Monday, and on Wednesday morning I was ready to give it a try. The first times through there was jagged edges and a bit of smoke, but it worked. Square holes in seconds, large square holes in minutes.




With this new device in the shop I set about making a scale prototype- with full-size joints- to test if it's strong enough. A bed needs to disassemble and assemble relatively easily- it usually one of the largest pieces of furniture in the house and needs to be moved relatively often. This means that the joints can't be screwed or glued. However, they need to be strong enough to hold against, well.... repeated violent movement let's say.

The design I came up with involves a large mortise and tenon joint, held secure with a large dowel. Here is the first version in the prototype, where the peg is inserted vertically. Testing- by jumping on it mind you- proved that this was sturdy enough with these type of joints.



And in the actual frame, where the pin goes in horizontal- making for a much more structurally sound joint.





And here is the bed as it stands as of this morning. Finally looking like a bed- sort of. Finally looking like my drawings. On the home stretch? Maybe, but let's not get carried away.