Bed feet

[Aaron Liebling]

King size bed out of 8/4 sapele is nearing completion and the wife loves it.

I've eased the edges of the feet to prevent splintering, but I wonder if I should do anything else to protect them. I've heard of treating the feet bottoms with epoxy. Just finish as normal? Something else?

[Doug Garson]

You could install these. https://www.amazon.ca/Furniture-Glides-Straight-Wooden-piece/dp/B001W6Q4UG?th=1https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51t9L9wmUpL._AC_SL1000_.jpg

[Michael Schuch]

Or make your own sliding feet out of some UHMW plastic and screw them onto the bottom of the posts. Counter sinking the screws in the UHMW of course.

[Jamie Buxton]

Just round over the edges of the feet a bit. There's no functional reason to add plastic or metal tips to bed feet. And they look weird; the nice wood leg looks like it is perched on this other thing.

[Jim Becker]

I will "partially" disagree with Jamie if you have hard floors rather than carpet. Some kind of non-slip, but soft interface between the bed legs and the floor will help reduce damage to said floor over time. Beds "move" for various reasons which can and does mark a non-carpeted floor.

[Aaron Liebling]

We have hardwood and routinely use thin bits of felt to keep the floor from being destroyed. In this car, I was worried more about the bed. Thinking about it, the felt should be enough to protect it, too

[Jim Becker]

We have hardwood and routinely use thin bits of felt to keep the floor from being destroyed. In this car, I was worried more about the bed. Thinking about it, the felt should be enough to protect it, too
Yes, we had wide pine at the old property and it did "take it for the team" where the bed posts contacted it for all those years, even with a little felt on the bottoms. What you have to be careful with around felt and felt like materials is that they slide relatively easily. Check your options on that so you get the cushion/protection, but don't have the furniture skating around the room if you accidentally bump into it, etc. The larger the contact point, the better things will be in that respect, too. I'd not use the nail in glides on a bed for that reason.

[Aaron Liebling]

The old bed is a massive cherry sleigh bed, which is probably why it never skated around (despite the name).

[Paul Haus]

One thing to watch is some material used for feet and spacers can leach material (polymers) which can stain the floor under them with time. That's just a fyi if you make your own.

[Tom Bender]

I put rubber feet on furniture. MaMaster Carr sells good ones in a variety of shapes and sizes. I keep a variety on hand. You could use 1 1/2" diameter on 8/4 legs. Counterbore to hide most of the foot and hold the leg 1/16" off the floor. If you drill a little too deep you can always add a shim.