Thuma bed for joinery ideas

[smorgasbord]

The company has been around for at least a few years, but I just came across a couple of videos showing assembly close-ups, etc.
https://vimeo.com/408078456

and
https://vimeo.com/252260413

I used a similar joinery technique (sometimes called a "castle joint") for a coffee table I built a decade ago (that doesn't disassemble, but it's 4/4 stock and had the complication of rails curved on the bottoms):
[attachimg=1]

Anyway, I was thinking of using my Domino XL with their KD connector system, but this kind of castle joint is fun to cut and the potential for assembly/disassembly without tools is a plus.

Here's a video on making the castle joint that's similar to what I did on the coffee table.

Not practical for a bed since you'll likely bang your shins are the protruding rails.

But, interesting to me is that watching the Thuma videos, it looks like the ends bed rails are laminated, perhaps for strength. This YouTube video has the fellow doing the same thing (about 8:30 in):


I guess the idea is that there are deep notches cut in the ends of the rails, and so the very ends are at danger of with the grain splitting off.  Anyone got any thoughts on that? I think the danger only exists during assembly/disassembly, so it makes sense that Thuma would do that since owners would be assembling the bed. But even so, with those pretty thick rails and dense hardwoods, I'm not sure that's really an issue. Would like to hear opinions.

 

[Lincoln]

Might be why they're laminating the rails, for strengthening up that notched section?

 

[bcrawley]

I built a bed of this style for my son. He just moved to Brooklyn, and I thought if his life goes anything like mine, he'll be starting a 10+ year phase with 4+ apartments, and a disassembling bed would make moving easier.

I saw that video with the laminated rail ends, which is something Thuma does too; seemed overkill to me and so far the bed has held up just fine. But is only a few months old. Also overkill, I thought, is Thuma's central bar on a twin bed; necessary for any larger bed, but once I had the slats in my son's bed it was tight enough without. I made a central bar, and didn't install it. I've kept it figuring if a future girlfriend leads to a double bed I can make a new pair of shorter rails and use the longer rails and legs already made.

I did a smaller angle on the rails as I liked the decorative effect but was also wary of shin barking.

View attachment 1

One thing that last video showed me that I did use, was cutting the inner leg corners to allow the mattress corners more room.

View attachment 2
View attachment 3

Another idea from a similar video was a failure; using Ikea twin bed slats, which were cheaper than buying the wood to make them. First of all I used their published specs without having the bed rails in hand; their slats are curved, so they are "shorter" in practice than their length would indicate, and even with two rounds of fixes they just fell out of the bed.

View attachment 4

So I made my own from some Home Depot poplar. (Or pine? not sure.) Cut to the right length with stout dividers between each they make the bed stout and tight. I also rounded over all the slat's edges, which I thought might be overkill, but watching my son assemble it I decided it was worth the extra time. (I think it was a late night before helping him move and I considered just leaving the edges square and potentially splintery. But he was handling the slats a bit casually and it seemed a worthwhile step.)

View attachment 5

You might have a look at the Slumberjack Knock-Down Bed video on YouTube. It was designed by a woman who shares Nick Offerman's workshop. Plans are in one of his books, and if I'd had more time I might have built it— looks to be a bit sturdier, but lengthier build.

 

[Lincoln]

Looks great, [member=76272]bcrawley[/member]. Is that some sort of 'shared' shop, or class situation, in the first pic?

 

[bcrawley]

[member=69760]Lincoln[/member] yeah, it was the Woodcraft in Norwalk. Just closed down, right before Christmas. It had a club, you could buy hours with a card and work there; it was a great place to go with larger projects.

 

[Crazyraceguy]

Norwalk as in Ohio? That's about 2 hours north of me.

 

[bcrawley]

[member=58857]Crazyraceguy[/member] Norwalk in CT, sorry. I didn't know there was a Norwalk in OH, or I'd have said. I grew up in Cincinnati, though that's well south. We played football against Norwood... but that's more suburb than city.

 

[Crazyraceguy]

I looked it up, because I had never heard of the one in CT. Turns out they are related. Apparently, there was some major distraction from a fire in the revolutionary war and some people from there relocated to Ohio, reusing the city name in the new place. Strangely enough, they didn't put "New" in front of it?
Anyway, it's only about 10 miles south of Lake Erie but well west of Cleveland.
My friends don't call me the "king of random" for nothing....lol.
I look up things I don't know about and retain them. Now I know this.

 

[4nthony]

[member=58857]Crazyraceguy[/member] Norwalk in CT, sorry. I didn't know there was a Norwalk in OH, or I'd have said.

I looked it up, because I had never heard of the one in CT. Turns out they are related. Apparently, there was some major distraction from a fire in the revolutionary war and some people from there relocated to Ohio, reusing the city name in the new place. Strangely enough, they didn't put "New" in front of it?
Anyway, it's only about 10 miles south of Lake Erie but well west of Cleveland.
My friends don't call me the "king of random" for nothing....lol.
I look up things I don't know about and retain them. Now I know this.

There's a Norwalk in California, too

Though, I don't know if there's any relation to the CT and OH versions.

I follow quite a few woodworkers on IG and see Thuma ads all the time.

 

[Crazyraceguy]

It doesn't appear so, at least in any official way. It wasn't incorporated into a city until over 100 years after the Ohio one. Someone may have heard the name from "back east", but it wasn't a literal relocation like the other.