How would you attach the boards to the bedpost?

[Richard Bistline]

Would you use a sliding dovetail? I am going to make the bedposts 4 x4, but I am not sure how to attach end grain boards to edge grain posts. This is my first bed head board. How do you do your headboards? Any insight will be greatly appreciated.

[Kyle Kraft]

I use the locking brackets from Rockler. Used the CNC mill at work to make a routing template to machine the perfect pocket.

[Don Bullock]

I agree with Kyle. These brackets make it possible for the bed to be dismantled in the future.

[Larry Fox]

Can't say this is the best way but it is the way that I did it (and will do again this weekend when I do another bed). I made a very shallow mortise in the leg (something like 1/2"), I then made a matching tennon on the end of the rail. This solves the allignment and twist problem but does nothing for attachment. For this, I adapted an idea from Jeff Miller's book on building beds. His idea is to capture a nut into the back of the tennon for the stretcher between the two legs and drill a hole in the shallow mortise that you routed for the rail. A pocket and slot is then routed into the inside of the rail into which a bolt slips. This secures the whole workings together quite well and also hides the bolt. The adaptation that I made to Miller’s idea was to not route the slot and use a piece of all-thread and a nut instead of a bolt. All you need at that point is the pocket.

Bit complicated to describe. If you look in Miller’s book he has a nice diagram.

[Jerry Olexa]

I've used brackets in past. Quick and strong w option to dismantle...

[John Piwaron]

Mortise and tenon. I've built beds with a fairly short tenon, maybe an inch, that takes care of alignment and twisting. and then bury a nut in the bed rail and drill a hole in the leg for a screw that engages that buried nut.

This technique is very common. Very traditional. It's worked for a long time.

I've heard of the metal brackets loosening up over time. How's that going to be fixed?