Bed Hardware

Ryan Mooney

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The Gorge Area, Oregon
Running out of excuses to not get started on the bed frame so its time to start accumulating hardware to go along with the wood that's been sitting in the garage for the last ~4 years.

Short version: anyone used zipbolt connectors and have anything good/bad to say about them?

Long Version:

I know this has been beaten to death before, but I have a couple of specific parts I'm looking at and wanted to get the collectives thoughts on them before pulling the trigger.

The basic design is pretty simple, its a king bed with headboard, footboard, side rails and a center support beam. I'm planning on just permanent mortise and tennon for the headboard and footboard into the posts. That means that the headboard and footboard assemblies will be somewhat on the heavy side but they aren't designed to be super tall so I think they'll be ok.

The rails and center beam will need to be detachable which brings up the "bed bolts" or "other bed fastener of choice" discussion. My side rails are 6/4 nominal maple (finished to a bit over 4/4) so I have a reasonable amount of wood to work with. I was planning on traditional bed bolts with a stub tennon on the ends of the rails to seat them into the legs but then I ran into this:
http://www.leevalley.com/US/hardware/page.aspx?p=71050&cat=3,40842,43730&ap=1
The zip bolt seems attractive in that I don't have to drill a hole through the post and thus worry about incorporating the bolt cover into the leg design. Currently I'm leaning towards using it. Any reports from the field are welcome!
I found an animation on their web site that explains the system: http://zipbolt.com.au/home (down near the bottom, complete with overly loud music and an inexplicably long shot of nothing happening at the end). From that it appears that the chance of it working itself loose in a meaningful way is pretty low (other than the normal flex that'd you'd get with bed bolts so it will probably need to be snugged up after a couple of months use).


The other alternative is of course this:
http://www.horton-brasses.com/bedboltsbed.asp (also available from rockler, highland, etc..)
Not considering the LV bed bolts because of preference for the square nut variety both from a traditional aspect as well as the fact that the nut hole can be somewhat smaller. This comes at the cost of requiring a smidge more precision.


For the center beam I'm looking at using this:
http://www.leevalley.com/US/hardware/page.aspx?p=65557&cat=3,40842,43730&ap=1
My main concern there is if it will have any problems with popping apart or if I should look at a more "permanent" type of connector like the bolt together system:
http://www.leevalley.com/US/hardware/page.aspx?p=50302&cat=3,40842,43730&ap=1
The center beam will have a couple of adjustable legs under it to support the center weight so the flex around that causes some concern about the connectors between it and the head/footboard aseemblies coming loose.


I've also considered the other knock down hardware for the rails like:
http://www.leevalley.com/US/hardware/page.aspx?p=67916&cat=3,40842,43730&ap=1
http://www.leevalley.com/US/hardware/page.aspx?p=67917&cat=3,40842,43730&ap=1
but based on my previous experiences with commercially done versions I think that the bolts of some sort will make me happier in the long run.
 
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