Reply To: Bed construction question
Welcome! / Forums / General Woodworking Discussions / Projects / Bed construction question / Reply To: Bed construction question
Hi Rob. Sounds like a nice project. I think there are a couple of questions here. The first had to do with the footboard and headboard being so wide that if they were tenoned into the legs, the wood movement could cause splits. That is definitely a worry. The only thing I can think of to remedy that is to use a “frame and panel” type of construction. For example, if you want a 15″ wide (tall) headboard, have a 9 3/4″ panel (or maybe two panels separated by a vertical member) floating in between two horizontal 3″ rails. In this scenario, the rails have 3/8″ deep grooves to fit the panel. Also, each leg would have two mortises to take the rail tenons, but would also have a 3/8″ deep groove connecting the mortises (which are deeper) to accept the panel.
The second question has to do with tenon length and the long rail tenons overlapping with the header/footer tenons. Will you be centering the mortises in the legs? If so, and if your long rail mortises are at the same level as the lower header/footer mortises, then 1 1/4″ tenons will definitely intersect in the mortises. Even if you cut a 45° angle on the ends of the tenons, that leaves only 3/4″ of unchamfered tenon. If you had the mortises offset from center (closer to the outside faces, leaving a 1/4″ reveal) on the legs, then you could use 1 1/4″ tenons and they would only intersect 1/4″ and a small chamfer would allow 1″ of unchamfered tenon.
It seems that you also may not need to have the header/footer mortises at the same level as those for the long rails. The header and footer might want to be higher anyway because the mattress will have some height. Having said this, be aware of safety for your twins. You don’t want a little one’s head getting stuck in between a mattress and a headboard. Play with the vertical positioning of the headboard and footboard a little to see what works.
BTW, I think the 1/2″ tenon thickness is a good choice here with pine. Good luck and keep us posted on progress.