[Closed] making a green oak framed bunk bed - advice please!

why green oak? In a timber framed building you've got the weight of everything sitting on the oak to keep it vaguely in check as it drys out.

Your beds not going to be heavy enough to stop the frame twisting in any direction it likes - your not going to be able to keep all those legs in contact with the floor

The tannin in the oak isn't going to be to friendly to bedding either

why green oak? In a timber framed building you've got the weight of everything sitting on the oak to keep it vaguely in check as it drys out.

This was my first thought too...won't it twist like mad as it dries out? Kiln dried oak shirley (though materials cost would be high I'd imagine. I'd probably use good old (some sort of) softwood.

Green oak will go bonkers when you put it indoors and it starts to dry fast

Thanks all, softwood it is (with kiln dried birch pole uprights?)!

I'd thought of green oak because a friend is getting a green oak barn built and I like the look of the jointing techniques and overall process. Guess I'll save it for building a wood shed / mini-hay-barn!

Kiln dried oak

edit - too late 🙂

The aesthetic is certainly a key part of it - though I also like the laying out and scribing etc of green oak building.

A no research done whatsover question, would I be able to make the bed using dry joints and pegs with dried oak?

4" is a bit OTT too. The bunks we have use 38mm softwood par. And they're sturdy enough.

A no research done whatsover question, would I be able to make the bed using dry joints and pegs with dried oak?

A no experience answer... 😀

I think it would squeak like a ****er! I'd be going mortice/tenon, dowelled, biscuited joins...those type of things, with PVA/PU adhesive. maccruisky is more experienced than me for anything that goes over 20mm vertical. 🙂

A no experience answer...

I think it would squeak like a ****er! I'd be going mortice/tenon

That was my fault with a no book learning question - I'd assumed mortise and tenon, etc were dry joints!

maccruiskeen will advise shortly I'm sure. There are plenty other furniture makers, joiner-types here too that will give you better advice than me. I'm just flooring really.

I'm just going from a user experience but the rail above the ladder makes it look like you'll (you/user of bed/a child) be OK to crawl in, how the hell are you going to get back out again, feet first, face down onto a ladder you can't see, then you need to bend at the waist to avoid braining yourself on the crosspiece?

Unless it's all a bit taller than I think from the image?

Your guard rail design is unsafe. It would be very possible to compress the mattress and get part of your body trapped, particularly when the kids end up playing around the bed.

If I were you I'd take a close look at the guard rails of commercially available kids bunk beds.

Buy a bed from IKEA. Build a workshop or a treehouse.

Your guard rail design is unsafe. It would be very possible to compress the mattress and get part of your body trapped, particularly when the kids end up playing around the bed.

If I were you I'd take a close look at the guard rails of commercially available kids bunk beds.

Noted and dealt with - as I said above, I will be adding an extra rail in under my guard rails to ensure maximum gaps of 3".

I'm just going from a user experience but the rail above the ladder makes it look like you'll (you/user of bed/a child) be OK to crawl in, how the hell are you going to get back out again, feet first, face down onto a ladder you can't see, then you need to bend at the waist to avoid braining yourself on the crosspiece?

Unless it's all a bit taller than I think from the image?

Good point. Would two cross bars (ie, remove the top one you discuss) be enough to prevent it from leaning over? I'd reckon so...

Just for ideas really but here are a couple of pics of my bed a made a few years back. Legs are 3" square oak wile the rest is made of 2 inch planks of Alder from the farm. I timmed and planed the sides but the head and foot boards I just used the rough sawn planks and tidied them up with a flap disk in an angle grinder. Certainly a bit of a rustic look and dead easy and quick to make. Doesn't move or creak at all and have been very happy with it. Weighs a tonne though 🙂

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I can see what your aiming for with the extended uprights for the double bed but I think that the diagonal bar linking it back to the foot of the bunk might look odd in reality and isn't really doing anything strength wise. You might want to lose that or at least build the rest of the bed and consider whether you want it then.

I'm not sure what the tall legs at the bottom of the lower bed bring to the party?
What are they for? Why not just have the end of the lower bed a lot lower (like a traditional bed) and get rid of the slats at the top.

What is the reasoning behind having the beds at 90degrees to each other? Would you not be better off just having them one above the other, like a traditional bunk bed? The bottom bed looks wider than the top one? Perhaps that's why they are perpendicular to each other?

maccruisky is more experienced than me for anything that goes over 20mm vertical.

Everything I make only has to look good of a day or two then it goes in a skip, and its all held together with screws. I rarely get to work with anything more exotic than 3x1 dressed pine, CLS and plywood.

I think for the fun of making stuff just do whatever you want joint wise, just work with seasoned wood so that you're not getting too much movement in your final structure. Softwood is easier to source and work with in many ways, but not the easiest to chisel and joint accurately though as the the wood can squash and tear rather than cut cleanly. Hardwood is better for that.

Maybe for character look at reclaimed timbers of some sort, big chunky beds I've made in the past have been made out of reclaimed rafters. If you get boards that have come from a building with plaster and lath ceilings you get hundreds of nail-holes which are a bit of a bore to pull them all out but the end result is actually pretty nice as the iron has leached into the wood. Softwood that has aged rather than just dried out can give a really pleasing character when you wire brush it. The bed I last made was done this way and for the headboard I drove wedges in from the ends to split the boards almost all the way along, placed the owners collection of fossils and minerals in the split then let it spring back and clamp them all in place.

Darn fine bed welshfamer! I'd like some rusticness with the birch poles, etc, and that roughsawn end looks great!

Richie_B, stumpy01, thanks for checking it out. The reasons for all these things tie together (in my head, at least). The bottom bed is a small double and the top a funny single. My daughter would like to have a desk under the topbed so she "can do experiments".

She'd also like to be able to enclose the bed with curtains, hence the diagonal bar. I've got some leftover steel tube I used to make curtain poles, perhaps that would be better? Alternatively, add another upright next to the double bed, which would support that desk corner and look more natural?

Thanks for that maccruiskeen.

The idea of reclaimed wood is a great one I hadn't thought of, and I'm just down the road from an outfit called Oxford Wood Recycling who get all sorts of bits in. Ace.

http://www.oxfordwoodrecycling.org.uk/

I take your point on (seasoned!) hardwood being better able to take clean cuts and make extra neat joints. That will be my plan.

Do you have any pics of the fossil bed? Sounds ace, but I can't quite imagine it!

edit: double post apology!

edit 2: meant to say thanks to Tron for pointing out guard rail problem - I appreciate your thinking about my plans!

Do you have any pics of the fossil bed? Sounds ace, but I can't quite imagine it!

now that I think about it... when I say i was the last bed I made for someone.... I made it nearly 20 years ago, no pics I'm afraid. The more recent beds I've made for myself are all odd arrangements of plywood boxes.

to try and describe it though - the beams were something link 6x2" or 8x2". I clamped them at one end then drove a wood splitting wedge in at the other so that a split ran along the grain, along the length of the beam. Poked some pretty odds and ends in then knocked the wedge out.

I am with Stumpy and Richy on this. I would get rid of those long planks on the double bed (make some other arrangement for supporting drapes, she may well tire of them soon) and put in a cross beam to strengthen/hold tight the two legs on the front of the bunk.

Well, having played around with it I'm in agreement with you all too!

I think that allowed me to sort the desk area as well!

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