Advice about building bunk bed from MDF

[BambFurniture]

Hi, im building a 3 tier bunk bed with the bottom bunk pulling out.

My question is im building it out of 3/4" MDF and want advice about how to connect the pieces of MDF together.

I have seen plenty of MDF beds built and was wondering what sort of method they are using to connect the pieces of MDF?

I have attached a picture of the design of the bed i am building, its seems alot of what i have read most companies are making them like Ikea style with CAM and Dowel fixings but i want it to last the test of time. So wanted the fixings to be a stronger than CAM fixings.

Hope im not just blabbering on. I have so far build an internal frame out of 4x2's but i dont want to over engineer it because its for a customer and they may have to move it in future so want to make it easier for them to dissamble and reassemble.

They want it made from MDF and not Plywood otherwise i would of used plywood.

Any advice will be greatly appreciated.

Many Thanks

 

[BambFurniture]

Also i have seen some builds being made using T-Nuts and bolts but i wouldnt of thought Mdf would be strong enough to hold T-Nuts in the end grain of MDF.

 

[Adam9453]

I would use housing joints, plenty of glue and mdf screws

 

[Steve Maskery]

You will have to make it flat-pack, because something like that is unlikely to go up a staircase very easily.

If it is an assemble-it-once-and-that's-it project, then you can just use pocket screws. If you plan it properly all the pockets will be on hidden faces. It will take being disassembled once or twice, but it's not a repeatable operation much beyond that.

Cam fixings are very good. Use the 25mm ones if you can. They provide the pressure, the actual joint strength come from dowels, biscuits (better) or dominoes (best).

 

[marku]

I had exactly the same problem when I built an MDF Castle Bed for our son, I ended up building it with battens on the corners I think they where about 40mm x 20mm. I joined them to the MDF with biscuits and then screwed the battens together in the bedroom.

Its been more than strong enough even with two children and an adult in it so I think 2x4 would be overkill.

There are probably far better ways of doing it than this but it worked for me.

was a post on it if you want to see a few pics.

childs-castle-bed-wip-t75537.html

Mark

 

[woodchip]

I would use barrel bolts like these

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/FURNITURE-COT ... 1114808922

 

[BambFurniture]

Thank you for all the information, i thought 4x2's would be kinda overkill also. So im better off with cross dowelling with some added dowels included for extra support? Also can anyone recommend a good primer to spray through spray gun ideally a LOW VOC primer.

I will certainly need to be something that can be taken down and put up easily. I thought about pocket screws but for a customer who wont have all the square driver bits dont really want to make it out of them.

To be honest would use CAM fixings but i dont have a jig to make cam fixings. I thought there might be a Jig but searching online there doesnt seem to be one available in the UK. Unless someone can point me in a direction of a Jig.

Many Thanks

 

[BambFurniture]

Also any chance someone can point me in the direction of a cross dowel jig?

Many Thanks all.

Btw Marku that castle bed looks amazing.

 

[paulrockliffe]

You could use recessed machine screws to hold it all together. Depending on the look your'e going for these could work well. Tapping the thread into the ends of the MDF boards will give you a much stronger fixing than any screw will, and I would combine that with a housing joint too. If you don't glue the joints (not necesary) it'll be dead easy to disassemble and rebuild without the joints losing any strength. Which means you can build off-site and test everything is right a bit easier too.

Only downside is that the look might not be what your client is after, but a suitable cap or filling the recess might get around that. Your design means that you could use that method on the hidden sides regardless and a hidden method on the visible sides.

You could also laminate the visible sides , say 12mm bolted up, with a 6mm MDF face screwed over the top from the inside, more work but gets you the strength of the bolts without the heads showing.

 

[SteveF]

how about going down to 2 x 2 inside corners and fit machine threads
http://www.screwfix.com/p/insert-nuts-t ... f-50/61859
you could then just allen bolt together
http://www.screwfix.com/p/joint-connect ... f-50/87106
you will want something to support the mattress base anyhow

Steve