by William Carlough
"This four post king size bed frame contains features found on Sheraton and Chippendale furniture. The inspiration came from a Fine Woodworking article by Phil Lowe. There is also a video of Phil demonstrating how to carve the reeding that was very helpful. Walnut is the primary wood for this frame. The 12/4 post material came from Amana, Iowa, while the rest of the project utilized 5/4 walnut harvested in Wellman, Iowa. The finials and cove are made from Pau Ferro. This project began with the ⅝” mortises on the lower posts. The rails were then tenoned and holes were bored to accommodate ⅜” bed bolts. The head board and foot boards were then fit using ⅝” tenons pegged and glued to the lower posts. The upper posts are attached with a 1” dowel end turned. After the upper posts were turned I used a home made index head to layout and score the reeding lines. These were carved using a v-tool and back bent gouge. A similar method was used to carve the spiral reeds in the headboard finial. The headboard pediment, cap and cove were rough cut on the bandsaw, they were shaped with a router, template and flush trim bit. The upper portion of the cove had to be fit by hand using a spokeshave. Since this bed frame was built for a freestanding bed there were no internal support ledgers or slats used. This project was finished with one coat of tung oil varnish followed by two coats of wipe-on polyurethane. The final coat was buffed out with 3/0 steel wool and a carnauba-beeswax blend."