The Sleigh Bed: Part I

Hi all,

As the work on the second nightstand wound down, I started the sleigh bed for my daughter Qaitlin.  The sleigh bed design is from American Woodworker February 1998 in the article "Sleigh Bed" by Randy Sorenson.
Here is a snapshot from the magazine article.

I am changing the design a bit.  I liked the idea that I can create the curved front and back boards using bandsawn slats, but I didn't want to have the open look with spacers between slats as seen in the picture.  The queen size bed is about 60 inches across and each slat is about 2" wide.  So I'm going to cut out about 60 slats and assemble them into a complete piece.  It should be fun as there are some very interesting challenges here!
Most of the bed is made out of 2" thick ash, so first I had to buy it in Atlanta.  The ash comes in random widths and lengths as 8/4 stock so I had to know
how each piece in the bed would be cut and figure out in the store which pieces of ash stock to buy.  Then I had to figure out cut lines so the guy at the store could cut the long pieces so I could get them in the van.  Here is Pauli standing next to the ash before the cuts!

Once I had it home, it was laid out in the garage while I finished the nightstands.

Then I had to take the plans in the magazine article, transfer them to paper and use them to make templates for the legs which are quite curved.  First, I went through all my stock and remeasured all the parts and wrote on each blank what I would use it for.  Then I took the stock for the curved legs and laid it out on the table saw.

Here is a snapshot of the plans for the legs.  I measured out a 1" by 1" square grid on plywood scrap and carefully transferred from the drawing to my stock.

Here is what my first draft of the templates looked like after layout and transfer.

Next I tried to layout the slats as best I could.

I tried to see how the slat would fit within each leg as some of my slats will rest right against each of the four legs.  Then I cut out my templates on the band saw.  You can see them laying on top of the blanks which by now have been carefully squared on my table saw.

After Pauli and I had looked at my first draft of the templates, we decided they didn't have enough of a curve.  I found it hard to translate the tiny magazine blueprint to the plywood and my mistakes showed up here.  The templates were not curved enough.  So I tried again and even used my Grandfather's old compass to help me layout the slats.  The second draft looked much better and I cut it out of thinner plywood.  Here the templates are laying next to the legs I cut out on the bandsaw.  By the way, cutting out 2" stock that is 48" long on a bandsaw is intense!

The curves here are much better.  Now just for a quick peek at what the sleigh bed will look like, here are the four legs in rough position held up by clamps.

In the next post, I'll go over making the side rails and showing how they are attached to the legs with bed rail fasteners.