Click-Bed Collection

Got possessed by the idea of making a bed that would not use any screws, glue, nails, staples, virgin blood or dowels. Below will see the iteration though hundreds of hours of learning how to use Solidworks, make mistakes and some type of wisdom.

1 Minute Video Summary

Version 1

Really bare bones first iteration. At this point I just wanted to make a minimalist bed. the idea would be clamp all the top planks together to cut out a space for the base using a circular saw with dado blade.

Version 2

Wanted to vacuum underneath it and push the design further, got to solve more problems and enjoy doing it. Headboard might have been screwed in place or just held in place by a slit and a few pinches of gravity.

Version 3

This is where the designs took a different direction. I came to the ignorant realization that wood is actually expensive and that I had no money. So changed my boundary conditions, no fasteners, cheaper wood: Plywood.
The attentive reader will remark that there is a thing a production costs. YES! Very good! I had not considered those...

Minimal design with separate and identical bed base boards.
Here I figured that it would be somewhat convenient to have a way to store bed linen inside without having to deal with loose planks flopping about

Version 4

So I tried to make that a part of the design. And as you can see it seems to work well. Also gives some insight into how the whole bed would be constructed. Real easy assembly.

This was also the stage where I learnt something that I still use to this day, throughout the whole process: Check the available material.

So yes, use standardly available material to increase availability and drive prices down. I could not easily find 18mm plywood sheets over 2 meters long.

So back at it, Iteration 5..

Version 5

This is where most of the lessons learnt came together. Refined my boundary conditions: No fasteners, 3 sheets STANDARD size plywood, minimize waste as possible.

At this point it was not about designing anymore, just about following logic. This explains the unusually dope bed base. This was the only way I could make it work. That is something else i got from this projects, how with certain restrictions you leave the outcome to chance and surprise yourself.

I contacted suppliers of Baltic birch plywood in Russia for better deals but did not want to ordered a container full.

And here is the fun part. Apparently it is hard to find a lasercutter with a cut surface large enough in the Netherlands. After hours searching and calling I found one company that could do it! So I send it my cut files to get an price estimation.

1800 euros... And so I was left with a project turned pipe dream.

Lasercut model

To have to work not be in physical vain I wanted to cut a scale model of the bed. I believe it is a 1:9 scale. Image will follow