Reply by David Kirtley

If you are going with similar design, I would go with the 1” but I would make the top into a torsion box and beef up the stringers and put a piece of 1/4 in or 1/8 even ply on the bottom. I would even say resaw the show wood down to 1/2 and laminate it to 1/2 ply to make it go further. You have access to the CNC so I would go with an egg crate type of stringers that half lap out of 3in or 3-1/2in strips of 1/4 ply on edge on 6in spacing. You could park a car on it.

The whole idea is to keep it from deflecting. As far as the joinery to headboard and footboard, making the bed box a bit thicker will give you more surface area to mount them.

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