Ideas For Knock-Down Joint/Hardware For Bedframe Design

[Brice_Arnold]

I hope this is in the right section.

I am in the design stages of a bedframe for my wife and myself. The basic design is a 4 post bed where the foot and head boards are joined to the posts via mortise and tenons (or dominos). The side rails of the bed will be a frame structure (similar to a cabinet face frame, either with dominos or pocket holes) supporting 3 drawers on each side of the bed with cross members joining the two side rails and supporting the drawer slides. I want to incorporate knock-down features so that the frame can be assembled in the bedroom. I would like to do something elegant and durable. Here are my ideas. The joint in question is between the siderail frames and the posts on the head and foot board.

1. Simple pocket holes, I'm not really excited about this method

2. Sliding doevtail with post caps to cover the joint.

3. Lamello Clamex S, I don't know how well these will hold up to racking.

4. Tusk Tenon

 

[tiralie]

Brice:
Have you looked at using bed bolts?
If not do a google search.
There are a couple different styles but they are used to hold the back board to the side rail.
Tim

 

[Brice_Arnold]

-Tim, thanks for the suggestion.

I am trying to avoid visible hardware. I suppose with the bed bolts you could do a counter-bored hole and plug the hole but you still know what's there just from looking at the plug.

In searching for bed bolts though, I came across this. This might do the trick or would at least be a viable option for what I am trying to achieve. I would use tenons instead of dowels but the hardware would work.

http://www.rockler.com/product.cfm?page=25449&filter=bed%20connector

 

[tiralie]

oh, you want invisible... [big grin]...
You could also try Hafele or any of the European hardware distributors.
Hafele has about a half dozen solutions in the connectors section of their catalog. I think their universal connector is better than the Rockler one.
[attachthumb=#]

[attachthumb=#]

 

[Kevin Stricker]

Put the bedbolts on the inside of the frame.  They can be accessed by removing the drawers.  Hopefully for you beds have a lot of racking forces so you want a fastener than can be tightened up from time to time.