California King Size Walnut Bed, Part 4

I assembled the bed in the room before I finished it.

First I clamped everything together:

I use these hardwood squares I made long ago that are super useful for this type of clamping:

These are the holes for the bolts that connect on the other side with barrel nuts.  I used a 3/4 inch forstner bit to make room for the nut head:

I cut the plugs with a plug cutter on the drill press:

And I cut them flush with a flush trim saw.

I installed the support boards which are made out of 2x6 lumber

These are joined with metal squares:

The pieces separating each board are made with plywood and glued to the rail:

This is how it all looked put together before finish:

I sanded everything with the orbital sander at 80, 150 and 220 grit, then used a finish of 2 parts tung oil, 1 part polyurethane and 1 part mineral spirits.  I gave it 3 coats in total and used steel wool in between.

And this is the finished bed:

California King Size Walnut Bed, Part 3

To make the head board, I started by joining the boards using biscuits.

I wiped most of the glue squeeze out with wood dust right away, then once dried I went over with a chisel and a hand plane to remove the rest.

I used the orbital sander with 80 and 150 grit to finish the surface.

Then I trimmed the ends to the final length with the jig saw first...

...and finally with a router to leave a perfect finish.

I always make lots of adjustments to the initial plans throughout the build...

To cut the miters for the head board frame, I used the miter saw.  To get a bit more accuracy I used a piece of sacrificial plywood as the base so it'd show me the cut line.  Then I sneaked to the cut line a little at a time.

I don't trust the guides on the saw, so I made a few test cuts on scrap wood to make sure I got a perfectly square angle:

The frame is also joined with biscuits.

A handy trick to clamp very long boards is to connect two long clamps:

This is how the back of the head board looked like once done:

If there're any small gaps in the corners I finish them with a mix of super fine sand dust and glue:

The side boards were a lot easier to make, here's a gluing the rail to it, which also has a bunch of drywall screws:

The legs are very simple also, first I cut them to width:

Then to length on my sled:

and finally gave them a sanding:

These are also glued with biscuits.  Here's using Matthias Wandel's trick to remove squeeze out with wood dust:

California King Size Walnut Bed, Part 2

I made the plans, and decided to add a headboard after all.

This is how it will look like:

The headboard is going to be made of a miter-jointed frame with a board inside that's made of 3/4 inch walnut boards jointed together.  All joined with biscuits and glue.

NOTE: The measurements shown in these screens are not 100% accurate.  I made changes to those during the build of the bed.  Please don't use as a reference.

The rails are going to be made of 2x4 fir:

Bottom view:

Side boards:

Foot board:

Supports:

California King Size Walnut Bed, Part 1

I made some quick sketches for a very simple design using 2x4's and solid walnut.

I wasn't sure whether to have the mattress rest on the actual walnut boards or tucked in, but I think I'll go with the latter (which is, the left sketch):

I started by planning all the boards to 1 1/4 inch thick,

That made a lot of chips

Then I jointed all the edges.  I don't have a jointer large enough to do this, so I just did it on the table saw.  It's good enough for what I need it to be,

That's all of the 2x4s:

8 feet is as long as I can rip in my small shop...

Finally, I sanded everything to 220 grit for now.  I'll do up to 300 later,

That's all the boards ready.  I don't have the mattress yet, but once I have it, I'll cut everything to its final dimensions and assemble it, in part 2.