On Friday, August 12, 2016 at 3:10:20 PM UTC-4, dadiOH wrote:
"DerbyDad03" wrote in message
...
I'm moving along on my bed build and now need to assemble the headboard. I
could really use some confidence building advice.

The bed will be similar to this, but I'm sure that my headboard is being
built differently. I believe that they used solid 4x4's for the uprights
and mortised the horizontal slats into them.

https://img0.etsystatic.com/052/0/90...20270_c0a1.jpg

All of the wood I bought on Craigslist is 1 11/64" thick, therefore I will
be sandwiching the horizontal boards between 2 vertical boards so that the
uprights will essentially be ~3 1/2" x 3 1/2".

https://images.craigslist.org/00D0D_...O_1200x900.jpg

The bottom of the uprights, below the horizontals, will simply be a
sandwich of 3 vertical pieces, similar to how I made the foot board legs.

The other difference is that my horizontal boards are narrower, so I
will need 5, maybe 6, horizontals instead of the 3 that they used.

That is a lot of moving parts for me to keep square during the glue up. My
current plan is to use biscuits to make one big panel out of the
horizontals and then glue the uprights to the front and back of the panel.
I also plan to use 2 screws on each end of the horizontals, from the back
to the front of the uprights. I would then plug the screw holes with
matching wood.

OK, now that I've gotten that plan out of my head and in writing, it
suddenly doesn't sound so hard. :-) In any case, I'm open to suggestions,
words of encouragement, etc. Does anything in my plan sound any alarms?

Yeah. That's a pretty fair amount of wood for it to be glued and screwed to
the uprights. I'm thinking, of course , about the seasonal expansion and
contraction of the wood.


If it were me, I'd probably make the uprights with a deep dado to accept the
ends of the horizontal boards, afix the horizontals to the uprighrs with
only screws through small vertical slots in the ends of the horizontals.

I'm gonna need some help here...

What will prevent the head board from racking if the panel is "loose" in
the dado?

(BTW I didn't mention it, but my daughter wants the end grain of every other
horizontal to show. For the boards that don't show end grain, I was going to
use side grain filler strips. I did this with a "ladder end" bunk bed that
I built years ago and she likes the alternating look.)

I'd stop the slots an inch or so from where the top edge of the top
horizontal and bottom edge of the bottom horizontal will be

Why do you mention just the top and bottom boards? Aren't you suggesting
slots in all the horizontal boards?

Are you still in favor of using biscuits to create a panel? If so, would you
edge glue the horizontals or just glue the biscuits and let the rest of the
wood float.

and notch the
respective corners of the horizontals so they meet the edges of the
uprights.

You've lost me there. What is the point of "notching the corners"? What
corners are you referring too?

The panel can then move without you even knowing it
In short, the panel needs to float.