In order to maintain a low profile, drop-in poplar slats are used to support the mattress in lieu of a heavy boxspring.

As with all my pieces, each part of this bed is shaped, planed, scraped, sanded, polished, and finished by hand. This process, while extremely labor intensive, imparts a "feel" to the wood that simply cannot be matched by machine.

Detail of the Texas Ebony pegs used in the headboard. See how they are installed here

Detail of the Rail/Footboard joint, with one support slat removed for clarity. From left to right: the milled, brass locating pin used to secure each support slat; the hidden bed bolt, which bolts into a hidden nut integrated into the footboard; and a support slat, which simply drops down onto the locating pin.

This bed was originally commissioned by good friends of mine to complement a piece I had built for them earlier. It features concealed hardware, and pegged, floating, and socketed mortise-and-tenon joinery. (Which is to say, it is built to last a very, very long time.) The idea for this piece was to make something that was calm and quiet, something to come home to after a long and stressful day.

Dimensions: 84″ x 64″ (Queen Size) x 39″
Materials: Cherry with Texas Ebony Accents, Poplar
Finish: Tung Oil, Wax

With the last coat of finish dry and the last little peg installed, all that remains is to photograph the bed…

Here at Kellogg Photo Studios, we take pride in using only the latest and greatest in photographic innovations. For example, a large sheet of paper taped to the front door of the shop.

After shooting everything, the bed is taken apart, buffed with one last thin coat of wax, and carefully wrapped up for delivery.

All told, this project required a little over 150 hours to complete. (153 to be exact.) Now for a quick Shiner, and then it’s on to the next project…

Someone once asked me why I like boxes so much. I think I answered with this little zinger: “I don’t know.” Anyway, I like making them, and I try to incorporate them in my other, “non-box” work whenever I can. Maybe I just think little boxes are friendly, somehow. More to the point (if there ever was one in the first place), here is how I make the little pegs on the Mandell Bed and the Double-Trestle Desk.

I begin by laying out and cutting a shallow, square mortise when the peg will go. This is done before the piece is cut out or shaped in any way, so I don’t lose my reference edges. I then shape, sand, glue, and finish the piece as necessary. (Pre-finishing the piece will help later on. )

Once the finish has dried and cured, I can start work on the pegs themselves. I drill out the remainder of the mortise (through the tenon in the mating piece), being careful not to disturb the walls of the square mortise. Drilling all the way through the piece would be bad. Very Bad.

The next step is to finish squaring up the mortise so it can accept the square peg. Some people just drill a hole, then square up the “face” of the hole to make the mortise. I think it is actually easier to square up the entire mortise, so you don’t have to taper the peg.

Detail of mortises. The mortise on the right has been fully chopped and cleaned out, while the one on the left has only been drilled.

After carefully test-fitting the peg, drop in a little dab of yellow glue…

…and tap it home. Having pre-finished the piece helps here because any glue squeeze-out can simply be wiped up, rather than trying to sand and make a mess of the whole thing.

Next, I use a flush-cut saw on a little scrap of plywood to cut the peg about an 1/8″ proud of the surface of the workpiece.

a couple of rough-cut pegs.

Once all the pegs are fit, glued in, and cut to length, I mask off the areas around the pegs with several layers of blue painters tape. This protect the workpiece from getting scratched during shaping and sanding.

With plenty of masking tape in place to protect the piece, I begin shaping each peg. I do the initial rough-shaping with a rasp…

Pegs after rough-shaping.

…then refine the shape with a small file.

Pegs “post-filing.”

Once the pegs are filed, I further shape them with 220-grit sandpaper, then polish them with 400-, 600-, 800-, 1200-, 1500-, 1800-, and 2400-grit paper. A final buffing is done with a white abrasive pad.

Finally, the tape is removed, a thin coat of wax is applied and buffed out, and the piece is ready to go. All together, each peg requires about 45 minutes to mortise, fit, glue, and shape. (There were twenty-four pegs total for this particular project. The Double-Trestle Desk has sixty-four. 64 x .75 = 48 hours of labor)

The reason for doing all this is not strictly for decoration. Rather, each peg serves as a physical “lock” to the joint, adding plenty of mechanical strength to the already-strong chemical strength of the glue in the joint.

At last! Here is the bed, glued up, finished, and awaiting one more coat of wax. The bed slats fit over locating pins in the side rails, and eliminate the need for a box spring. Next up, fitting the ebony pegs into the headboard, then (finally) delivery…

Any suggestions for a name besides “Bed?”

Rather than using a large box spring for the bed, the clients and I agreed that slats would work just as well to support the mattress. The slats themselves were easy enough to fabricate, but the pins that hold the slats in place required a little more work. Above, my high-tech setup for cutting the 1/4″ brass rod stock into 32 1-inch “slugs.”

Next, I chuck the 1″ slugs into the drill press, then use a metal file and 400-grit sandpaper to chamfer and polish each pin.

The finished pins, ready for installation into the side rails.

Installing the pins into the bed rails. I use 5-minute epoxy, or as my teacher David used to call it, ” ‘toxy.” Anyway, this job is best done after the finish has dried, as it makes finishing easier, and any squeezed-out epoxy can simply be wiped off. Also, it it looks as though the shop A/C unit seems to have pretty much given up for the day.