Nail-less, glue-less almost screw-less fire finished bed

Step 5 The tricky legs....

Now, THIS is the step that will decide how strong your bed is so.. be careful.
First decide how tall you want your bed to be (in my case 23") and cut the pole, but take into consideration, the thickness of your mattress, the 6" of the board that will slide into the pole. AND ONCE AGAIN 90ý cuts must be very well done!

You must cut a cross shape into the pole at 90ý angles, the cuts must be as deep as the boards (6") so that they will slide all the way in, also the cuts must be a little bit smaller than the width of the boards to ensure a tight fit and no movement, you should be able to put them together tapping sligthly with a hammer.

Once more, just look at the pictures.... they are worth a thousand words.

Comments

[skimmo]

its just like a big mortise and tenon, but your using a who plank in stead cutting a shoulder, that is a very good idea, is it rock solid?

[Tazo]

I've been using it for more than a year now and it is still rock solid.I actually had some problems when moving since it was harder to disassemble than I thought probably moisture swelled the wood and made it even tighter.

[skimmo]

yeah i had that problem before with a puzzle i once made it swelled and locked together, i think if you sealed it really well it would move that much on you

[boboprime]

Can you provide more details on how you cut the crosses in the top of each post, please? What equipment did you use? How did you separate the excess parts of each cut from the bottom of the cut? Thanks for this great instructable!

[Tazo]

Hello Boboprime, There are 3 thing I tried, the first one was to use the jigsaw and a 3/4" chisel but I could not control the jigsaw very well against a round surface (side of the post) so, i tried a hand saw and it work very nice, it took me a long time because i had to go slow to make it straight, later I did some finishing touches with the chisel. When i finishd the first post, i had to go to the place where I buy all the wood I use and i commented what I was doing with the guy who works there and he told me that i could borrow his band saw this happend to be a lot faster and as precise as the hand saw so the other 3 posts I did borrowing a band saw making several cuts about 1/8" apart and then chiseling the wood away. I know not everyone has a band saw sitting in the garage so I only recommended a hand saw, but if you have a friend who happens to have a band saw you will save a lot of time... hope this expanation was enough if you have more questions I'm gald to help

[Bullmastif]

This is a great idea, thanks for sharing it.