Houston we have a problem....

[Dave Shawley]

I'm not sure if this is the right forum or not for this sort of an issue, so feel free to move it if I should have plopped it somewhere else.

The misses and I were rearranging the bedroom last night and when she moved the bed the rail split the bottom of the headboard!! The construction is pretty simple - an 1/8" mortise down the middle with two metal pins pressed through it. The rail is a basic metal rail with two hooks on it that goes into the slot and sits on top of the metal pins. She pulled on the bed and the pins pulled a chunk of the headboard out. The attached pics explain the damage better than my rambling.

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Anyway, now I'm left with the question of how to best fix this. I could buy a new headboard but what fun would that be? My first thought is to make a dovetail like joint and replace the long metal rails with some red oak or something economic:

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The slot and circular plugs are already there so I drew them in as well. I was going to attach the rail with connector bolts (http://www.rockler.com/product.cfm?page=368) or something similar to make it easy to take apart whenever we have to move things around. Chances are that I will have to replace a chunk of the panel since it blew out pretty badly so the entire dovetail section might end up being new wood.

Given my current unhappiness with the bedroom set that we have, I will probably be building a new bed sometime in the near future so I'm looking for something to get everything back together again in the short term. My biggest concern is that this approach is going to fall apart or is just structurally unsound for some reason.

Thanks in advance for any comments or other thoughts.

[Kyle Kraft]

Looks OK to me. Patch it up until you can build a new one.

[John Keeton]

First of all, not sure I believe the story about how the bed got trashed.;)

But, aside from that, what is the material comprising the headboard? Is it plywood or solid wood? It appears to be approx. 1" thick. Don't think a dovetail arrangement does any more than a half lap simply because the force vector is down, not a pulling force. For a short term fix, I would look more at trying to rout/chisel a section of the headboard from the inside, and glue in a block so I could use the old bracket.

If you plan on keeping the bed for awhile, I would replace the rail, with a ledger to carry the slats. I like to screw the slats to the ledger to prevent the arrangement from spreading. But, I would probably look at a much beefier joint - again, depending on the thickness of the material and its composition.

And, be more cautious in your bedroom activities!!:D

[Myk Rian]

I would place the bolt holes farther toward the ends of the rails. That would give you a bit more wood to hold the rails onto the legs. More mechanical strength.

[Don Bullock]

I remember my parents having a similar problem with their bed. My dad solved the problem by propping the rail up with bricks.;):D Your method may be better.

[Dave Shawley]

First of all, not sure I believe the story about how the bed got trashed.;)


That's how it ended up broken... not saying that it wasn't weakened though ;)



But, aside from that, what is the material comprising the headboard? Is it plywood or solid wood? It appears to be approx. 1" thick. Don't think a dovetail arrangement does any more than a half lap simply because the force vector is down, not a pulling force. For a short term fix, I would look more at trying to rout/chisel a section of the headboard from the inside, and glue in a block so I could use the old bracket.
The headboard is indeed 1" thick and it is solid wood though I'm not sure what species exactly... its pretty tight-grained. I had thought about trying to chisel it out and rebuild it but the design really sucks. The two steel pins are 1/2" off the edge on center and their 1/4" pins. That leaves about 1/4" of wood between two metal pins and the outside world. I can't imagine how it actually survived as long as it did.

Anyway, point taken on the dovetail. A half-lap would be a lot easier to cut out than a dovetail. The only reason that I was thinking about a dovetail is to prevent downward pressure from kicking the headboard backward. But, the dovetail doesn't really give much mechanical advantage in this case since most of the pressure on the joint is vertical as you mentioned and some bolts/connectors will more than match what the dovetail would give me.



If you plan on keeping the bed for awhile, I would replace the rail, with a ledger to carry the slats. I like to screw the slats to the ledger to prevent the arrangement from spreading. But, I would probably look at a much beefier joint - again, depending on the thickness of the material and its composition.


Probably gonna do a half lap with three connector bolts in a triangle to spread the forces out a little. I was just trying to figure out how to best handle the slats. The bed came with nifty adjustable metal slats. They have little ears that fit into a slot on the current metal rails. A ledger with a similar slot would do the trick quite nicely.


And, be more cautious in your bedroom activities!!:DLesson learned ;)