Construction Lumber and Hardwood for bed

I would save yourself a lot of trouble fabricating laminated beams and go with a much more simple construction. To make a significant difference in deflection reduction, you’d need to make sure the plywood you’re buying is void of gaps (probably not if you’re buying it at a big box store). You could then use maybe something like OSB, but once again the time it takes to construct this is probably going to be a huge waste.

I would either use the hardwoods you’re talking about to construct the entire frame (you really aren’t saving much making the laminated beams if you take into account time and effort and all the extra materials and transport).

If you read all that and just said, “But I want to make laminated beams!”, too bad. The easiest thing I can think of to do besides using nothing but oak and ash would be to use some angle iron to support the wooden frame from under.

I have a Tempur-Pedic king-sized mattress (not lightweight) and the cheap metal frame we bought as a temporary until I build a frame is more than enough to hold up me, the wife, and the mattress+box spring.

-- "Well, at least we can still use it as firewood... maybe." - Doss

This book by Jeff Miller is a wonderful survey of bed design, construction and methods.

You can compare designs, style features and proportions from bed to bed and, in the text, learn lots before you pick up your first board. Highly recommended.

If your library doesn’t have it, it should.

Kindly,

Lee

-- "...in his brain, which is as dry as the remainder biscuit after a voyage, he hath strange places cramm'd with observation, the which he vents in mangled forms." --Shakespeare, "As You Like It"

I don’t understand the need for structural support greater than 3/4 inch plywood for a captains bed with a mattress sitting atop the decking covering the drawers. But, I am thinking you will have a huge honeycomb design with the drawers fitted into the sides. I.e., you will have plywood uprights between and end of the drawer banks that go from underside of the deck to the floor.

Back when waterbeds were popular an awful lot of “massive-looking” captain beds with bookcase headboards and drawers below were sold with only the honeycomb of particle board between the drawers for support.

Perhaps I’m second guessing your actual design.

-- "I dream of a world where a chicken can cross the road and no one questions its motive"' - Anne Nonny Mouse

.

-- "I dream of a world where a chicken can cross the road and no one questions its motive"' - Anne Nonny Mouse

MNgary, if I am understanding correctly, his design is a typical bed frame elevated on legs. It sounds like you’re talking about a platform-type bed with rails on the ground. The difference in the two is very large when considering the deflection in the middle of the rail (the bottom and top of the rail in the middle experience a high moment of inertia).

So, patcollins, would you like to describe your design a little further? You might be better off increasing the height of the rails rather than the width.

-- "Well, at least we can still use it as firewood... maybe." - Doss

By structural parts I mean the posts and rails, under the mattress is just going to be a piece of 3/4” plywood supported by beams running down the center.

What gave me the idea was this

This type of design would use alot less hardwood and be lighter too, should it need moved.