Make your own Crib Mattress Support?

I made a crib for my grand daughter and used threaded inserts, spaced at about 2” intervals in the post. I made a sort of French cleat to be the mattress board support, with a matching cleat on the end of the mattress board.

-- Tim-- http://www.tmuli.com

Years ago I made a crib for my kids, and I just did the mattress support as a piece of plywood with a solid 3” mahogany frame. I put brass inserts in to the frame and ran brass screws through the legs of the crib in to those inserts. It worked pretty good I’d say.

Inserts sound like a great idea, thanks! That would probably work alot better than just putting a screw in and taking it out. I’m still a bit of a newbie, I appreciate the advice. Just wondering… do you remember what height yall put them at? right now i have it planned at 10” from floor/28” from top of rail as the bottom hole, second lowest hole 14”/24”, third at 18”/20”, and top hole at 22”/ 16”; is that about right? It is kind of a low crib, but my wife is only 5’ and it is a solid side, i.e. no drop side.

I built my daughters crib and built my own shelf and shelf supports. I built the shelf as a torsion box using 1x pine and 1/2 plywood. To mount the shelf to the crib posts, I bored a series of 1/2” holes (as deep as the post would allow), and put 1/2 oak dowels into the holes, protruding about 1.5 inches outside the post. The holes allow me to change the height of the shelf.

The system has help up well under use, and it saved me about a hundred bucks. That said, commercially sold cribs have to have a shelf that attaches to the frame somehow, not simply sitting on a ledge or dowel post.

-- Jeff, Deltona Florida