what's going on everybody I'm Johnny Brook welcome back to another craft your workshop video this week's video I'm gonna show you how I built what is probably my biggest project to date this live-edge mid-century modern king-size bed absolutely love the way this thing came together I built it to kind of match those nightstands I built a few months back so it's got an Evan eyes frame and it's got this gorgeous live-edge oak slab as the headboard obviously I think this is the focal point of the build I really had no idea how beautiful this lab was gonna be before I kind of cut into it but I'm absolutely pumped that I will in this lab because this thing is gorgeous tons of character reflex all kinds of weird crazy grain it just turned out gorgeous so hopefully you guys enjoyed this video and let's go and get started the first step in this project was to start working on getting this massive slab which I used for the headboard cleaned up so I cut the slab to rough length using my jig saw on one end and my track saw on the other end and as you might have noticed this slab was extremely uneven in thickness from one end to the other with the thicker end coming in at three and a half inches which was about an inch and a half thicker than the other end my track saw is max depth of cut is two and three quarters of an inch so after cutting as deep as I could with the track saw I finished the cut with my Japanese pull saw and these saws usually have two different teeth sets one for cross cutting and one for ripping and I realized about halfway through that I was using the wrong side definitely a lot easier to cut when you use the correct set of teeth with the slab cut to rough links next I decided to rip it down the center and this would do a few things first this lab was so heavy that I really couldn't move it around by myself so cutting it in half would make it much more manageable second I wanted to face those live edges inwards on the headboard to give the finished bed a little bit more of a modern look and last this slab was cut very close to the pits as a tree hence all the cracking in the center of the slab and by cutting it in half and allowed me to remove some of that cracked area later so once again I had to finish the cut with the pull saw and then I could start the arduous process of skip planing the slab so my goal when skip planing was just to bring the two ends of the slab to roughly the same thickness and the thinner end was about an inch and 7/8 so I had have had an inch and a half of material to remove from that thicker end and this process took a while but I eventually got it roughly flattened but it's not before emptying my dust collector been multiple times after skip planning I led the slab rest for a few days to allow any movement to happen with those fresh faces exposed and then I could get the slabs perfectly flat to do this I used my jointer but since the slabs were wider than my jointer a portion of the slab had to overhang the edge of the bed and this also meant that I had to remove the guard and if you decide to try this be extremely careful when doing this make sure any loose clothing is tucked in any long hair is pulled back as things will go very bad if anything gets caught in that cutter head as you can see after flattening one portion of the slab I was left with a ridge of on flat and area the next step in the process was to plane the opposite side parallel at the planer but I had to deal with that uneven edge somehow and that's where the planer sled comes in so a planer sled is just a simple piece of flat wood usually some kind of sheet good like plywood or MDF and you can attach the sled directly to the feature flattening but since these slabs were fairly long I instead added a little strip of plywood square to the sled so it could rest directly on the bed of the planer and this allowed me to run the slabs through the planer with the flattened portion of the slab riding on the planer sled after each pass I would mark the entire top surface of the slab with pencil to see when that face had been completely flattened then I could remove the sled flip the slab over and flatten the other face removing the ridge left by the jointer with the slabs perfectly flat I could join the edge at the jointer before ripping off about an inch from each slab at the table saw and this removed a lot of those crack sections of the slabs near the piste and also brought the total width of the two slabs to about 21 inches including the gap between them which is the width I wanted for the headboard with the slabs flattened and milled to final dimension except for their length I could move on to working on the other parts of the bed frame starting with the legs and I do have plans available for this bed which include dimensions for the legs to allow you to create your own templates and all the link to the plans in the cards as well as in the video description in case you're interested after laying out the shape of the template on a couple pieces of scrap plywood I rough cut the template at the bandsaw staying as close to my line as possible once the shape was rough cut I could refine the edges first using the jointer for the outside faces of the legs and then using a combination of the oscillating belt sander chisels and hand standing on the inside faces what the templates complete I rough cut the legs to size over the minor saw I used eight quarter ash for the leg stock and found this perfect rifts on board for the legs and rifts on lumber is extremely stable and is ideal for making legs so I really lucked out with this board and you can see the diagonal ingrained pattern on this board which indicates that the board was riffs on after cutting the leg stock to rough links I milled the board square on four sides using the jointer planer and table saw ripping them to their final width of five inches at the table saw finally I could cut the boards to final length at the miter saw you might be wondering why I milled the boards to final dimension before cutting the shape and that's because I needed to cut my joinery on the legs before cutting them to shape and this makes things much easier as it gives you a lot more of a reference surface when cutting your joinery I decided to use dominoes for the joinery on the headboard and footboard although dowel joinery would work in the exact same way so first I marked out my layout lines and then cut the mortises using the Domino and they didn't get on camera but I marked the lines for the Domino with all four legs clamped together and the bottom of the legs even to ensure that the front rail and back rail were spaced evenly from the floor I also like that arrows to indicate which side of the board I'm supposed to cut the mortises on so I don't accidentally cut them on the wrong face which I've done many many times next I needed to cut mortises for this locking bed hardware from Rockler which is used to allow the bed to be taken apart when moving and since I had to create four of these mortises I knocked out a quick jig using some scrap plywood so I marked the line as sixteenth of an inch in from the inside edge of the leg lined up the inside edge of the jig was that line and also square to the bottom of the leg and then routed out the mortise and once again the jig references off the bottom of the leg which will keep the side rails parallel to each other once the mortise was rounded in I traced the area where the hooks go into the leg and then removed those areas at the drill press with a quarter inch Forstner bit and I could have created another jig for this but these slots didn't really need to be precise and aren't seen in the finished piece after drilling out the slots I cleaned them up with a chisel and then test fit the hardware to make sure it fit which it did with that all the join was cut on the legs except for the mortises to attach the slabs to the legs which will be cut later since they reference off the front edge of the final leg shape so I could then start cutting the legs to shape which I did over at the bandsaw and I made sure to trace the outline of the leg onto both phases of the leg blank which allowed me to use either side of the piece facedown on the bandsaw I made sure to stay about an eighth of an inch proud of the line when rough cutting the shape and I didn't want to leave too much material to remove over at the router but I also didn't want to cut it too close and not be able to follow my template once the legs were rough cut I could attach to the template to the leg using double-sided tape making sure the face with the mortise for the bed Hardware was perfectly flush to the template along with the ends of the legs since the legs were an inch and 3/4 thick I needed to make the cut in two passes and this flush trim bit is really handy because the bearings can be removed so I removed the top bearing for that first pass and this allowed the bottom bearing to ride on the template which was on the bottom of the piece at this point and I set the height of the bit to cut about half of the material and made sure to use the starter pin when starting the cut to avoid tear out and I repeated the same process on the other legs getting half of the edges of the legs flushed up and then I reinstalled the top bearing flip the legs over so the rough edge was towards the table and rode the bearing of the bit on the smooth surface of the leg that I had just flushed up and as you can see you're left with an essentially perfect leg save for a tiny ridge between the two passes which can easily be cleaned up with a sander the last bit of work to do on the legs was to clean up the inside edge of the mortise and the wall here was only about a sixteenth of an inch and was extremely fragile so I decided it was best to just remove it and I used a chisel to do this but you could just make your jig accordingly and be able to skip this step next I could get to work on this side front and back rails all of which were made from six quarter ash and I cut the boards to rough length at the miter saw ripped into rough width at the table saw and then milled them Square and while I'm milling let's talk about the sponsor of this week's video Powermatic in the gold standard so I upgraded to the Powermatic pj eight 8/2 helical head jointer and 15 HH helical head planer a little over a year ago and they've been a total GameChanger for my woodworking the surface finish off of these machines is just absolutely amazing and I know they'll last me for many many years to come they get used on basically every project I make and really make my woodworking more efficient and just more fun to learn more about these machines by check out the link in the video description below and thanks again to Powermatic for sponsoring this week's video next I cut the rails to their final dimension at the table saw and miter saw and you can see that I had to add a stop to my mitre station since my stop block doesn't go to 75 inches and I made sure to leave the stop in place after cutting the front rail so that I can cut the slabs to that exact same length later on next I needed to cut the joinery on the front and back rails to do this I transferred the layout lines from one of the legs to a scrap piece of plywood and then used a combination square to transfer those marks to both ends of the front and back rails I could then cut the mortises into the rails making sure to adjust the offset of the bit so I would have the correct offset between the legs and the rails so with that all the joinery was cut except for the slab headboard so I could test fit the frame and make sure everything lined up to install the bed hardware plates i pre-drilled holes using a self centering bit and attach them using number six screws and the final screws I used were much longer than this but these were the screws I had on hand when test fitting put the plates with the hooks I offset them from the top edge of the rail about an eighth of an inch to make sure the top edge of the rails lined up with the top of the legs and also made sure the plates were Square to the rails and flush with the end with the hardware installed I did a quick test fit and was really happy with the way the bed was coming together I love the slight splayed two legs and everything just lined up perfectly I took some quick measurements for the center support beam marked out where I needed to add an edge profile and then took everything apart to prep for finish so I debated on the edge profile for the frame pieces and even put up a poll on my Instagram stories but I ultimately decided on a light chamfer and this not only matches the angular look at the bed but it's also extremely easy to clean up the chamfers whereas round overs require a ton of hand sanding also you might notice the bearing on the chamfer bit doesn't really work on the angled ends of the legs trying to clean those up with my block plane which I love using so that definitely wasn't a big deal I also added the same chamfer to all the edges of the rails as well once the frame parts were chamfered I sanded them up to 180 grit with my random orbit sander and also hit the chamfers with a hundred eighty grit to smooth them out I could also go ahead and glue up the footboard assembly at this point which went really smoothly although some super long clamps would have definitely come in handy here before gluing up the headboard assembly I needed to get the slabs ready for finish which involved a good bit of work first I cleaned up the edges of the slabs removing any big pieces of bark with a chisel and refining the shape a bit with a spokeshave and random orbit sander and also removed any loose debris with a wire brush and this slab had a good bit of bug damage and had already lost most of its bark so I was really just removing the last bits that were hanging on and speaking of bug damage the slab had plenty of these bug tracks packed with sawdust and I decided to stabilize the dust by soaking it with thin CA glue and the soaked right into the dust and then I hit it with some activator to make it dry instantly next I wanted to fill some of the cracks with epoxy both to stabilize the slab and also make the surface nice and smooth first I taped to the underside of the cracks with foil tape and once I ran out of foil tape painters tape and then use this pressure roller to make sure the tapes bonded really well to the slab for the epoxy I use total boat high-performance with their medium hardener which is a nice happy medium in regards to cure time I added some dark grey pigment to the epoxy mixed it for a few minutes and then filled the cracks and this big crack on the surface of the slab soaked up a bunch of epoxy but I eventually got it filled in after 2 pours and these cracks on the side of the slab we're also a little bit tricky but I was afraid these edges would be a little bit fragile otherwise after the second pour cured overnight I cleaned up the live edges removing all of the excess epoxy to prepare for the next step so to finish the live edge I wanted to experiment with this process I saw on another build video recently which I'll link to in the cards the process involves burning the live edge and then sealing it with tabletop epoxy and burning the edge help to even out the color of the live edge and also helps it to flow in with the color of the legs so after burning I removed any ash or excess residue with a quick blast of stare and then added two coats of total boat tabletop epoxy to the edge and this did two things first it sealed all those charred bits and meant they wouldn't flake off under our pillows later and second it made the live edge extremely smooth to the touch which meant it wouldn't get snagged on any of our pillows later so I guess really our pillows were the main priority here evidently so after brushing on the tabletop epoxy I wiped off any excess drips allowed it to dry for about four hours and then added a second coat and I was amazed at how the epoxy soaked into that grain of the wood and the second coat was definitely a necessity so even though I wiped off the excess epoxy there were still some drips during the time the epoxy cured and I wanted to clean up the bottom of the slab completely so I could pass the whole thing through my planer I found that a card scraper does a great job of removing excess epoxy but a belt sander or Festool Rotex in my case also works great once the excess epoxy was removed from the bottom I could pass the slabs through the planer and remove the excess epoxy from the top which is really where the bulk of the excess was from filling those cracks earlier I made sure to take really light passes at this point as I was getting some tear out in some of those highly figured areas of the slabs finally I could get the slabs cut to their final length at the miter saw and remember how I said I left that stop block set up from when I cut the front rail and back rail the final length well that really came in handy here and ensured that the slabs and those rails were exactly the same length so with the slabs at their final length I could cut the last little bit of joinery on this project first I marked out some lines for the Domino which I just roughly spaced evenly on the ends of the slabs since they varied in width there really wasn't a good way for them all to match after cutting the dominoes I held the legs up to the slabs and transferred the lines to the legs and as you can see I had the slabs clamped in place with the spacing I wanted I made sure they were square to each other and I also marked out the spacing on the legs themselves just to make sure everything lined up correctly and then I could cut the mortises into the legs again adjusting the offset of the Domino to create the offset I wanted between the face of the slab and the edge of the leg about a quarter of an inch in this case after cutting the joinery I could test fit the headboard and it fit great and most importantly looked awesome next I could go ahead and get everything finished so sanded the slab up to 180 grit scuff to the tabletop epoxy with 500 grit just to reduce the gloss and then spray it on a few coats of satin polycrylic for the bedframe pieces i used this black tinted polyurethane which i linked to in the video description and i sprayed it on using my HVLP system now it's going to use the India ink method that I've used previously to ebonized wood but that has to be wiped on and then top coated with poly so this black poly definitely saved me a ton of time I also made sure to tape off all the mortises before applying finish on both the frame pieces as well as the slabs to avoid screwing up those glue surfaces with the finish apply to the pieces I could finally glue up the headboard assembly which was a little stressful due to this sheer number of mortises and the extra long clamping area but I eventually got it clamped up adding another set of clamps on the backside of the headboard off camera once the glue up dried I reinstalled all the hardware assembled the bed frame and then I could start working on the final parts of the bed frame which included the center support beam and the side support rails for the center support beam I had this leftover piece of ambrosia maple that was just about the perfect size so I cut it to length and then added some support legs attaching them with dominoes and the support beam is attached using these Rockler Center bed rail fasteners which allow the center rail to be removed easily when moving for the side support rails I used some leftover poplar I had on hand and I milled the strips to size and then I needed to notch out the area where the locking bed hardware was situated on the side rails which I did on the table saw to attach to the support rails to the side rails I drilled and tapped some holes using my Wood Whisperer thread taps which have worked extremely well for me in the past and by attaching these support rails using tapped holes it allows me to adjust the height of the mattress or just remove the support rails entirely if I get a different type of mattress platform in the future for the slats I use these pre-primed pine one by threes from Lowe's I cut them to length in the minor saw and then attach the slats with inch-and-a-quarter screws adding one screw at each into the board into the support rails and then another screw into the cinder beam I also numbered the slats off-camera so that I could install them in the same order later and I could assemble the entire bed in its final home in our bedroom the assembly process goes extremely quickly with the locking bed Hardware dropping into place the safety lash and then pivots into place and then you add one button head screw to each corner to keep the latch in place the center beam then drops into place and then the slats can be spread out across the length of the bed after that add your mattress and some bedding and you've got a finished bed and with that this bed project was done alright hopefully you guys enjoyed this one as I said in the intro I just absolutely love the way this thing turned out I am so glad I picked this slab out of all the slabs that were available at my local slab place Asheville Hardware it is just so gorgeous so much character tons of weird funky beautiful grain it's just really really awesome and those two edges really lined up perfectly when I faced them towards each other again I do have plans available for this project in case you guys want to build one of these for yourself it's really not that difficult of a project in the techniques used it's just all of the pieces were really big and kind of cumbersome to move around and there are just so many parts and pieces deal with and so much joinery but I think anybody with you know basic woodworking knowledge could totally tackle a project like this especially if you buy premium lumber you could save a ton of the work that I had to do on this project I also have links to all the tools and materials I used in the video description below also I do have these new t-shirts these build-it-yourself shirts I love the way these came out I have these available on tons of different merch men's t-shirts women's t-shirts stickers coffee mugs all kinds of stuff so I love links to those in the video description as well as on the screen and last I have added that YouTube membership functionality to the channel that allows you to get some kind of behind the scenes content I've been doing some shop updates every couple of weeks and just kind of given people a peek behind the scenes to see what I'm working on so if you want to check that out check out the link on the screen here or in the video description below alright thanks again for watching everybody and until next week happy building