Best way to fix a pine bed-rail with a split dowel socket at one end?

[Jed Clampett]

Hi all. I'm trying to figure out the quickest and cheapest way to renovate the long rails on a second-hand pine bed frame I bought during the lock down. This is just for my own personal use at home, to raise my mattress off the floor. I don't have access to a workshop, so this needs to be a quick and easy repair job. My plan is to pump some brown stixall Stixall Extreme Power | Trade Sealants & Adhesives | Everbuild into the dowel hole, and then put a large Jubilee hose clamp around the end of the rail to hold it together securely. Does this sound a reasonable option to fix it, or is there something else I can do that's better without being too expensive? This is the worst end - but while I'm doing this I might as well do all four ends to make sure my bed is solid enough to sleep on.

 

[Bingy man]

Hi there Jed , I’m not sure about the product in your link as I’ve never used it. However a good quality wood glue should do the trick- titebond or a regular Pva. Pour it into the split(s) and let it run down the split as far as possible with the split gently wedged apart ( as in your photo ) i personally not use a jubilee clip as you will need to apply pressure from front to back and edge to edge while the glue sets -preferably overnight. Clean up any excess glue before it’s sets and re drill the dowel hole if necessary. Once the glue is dry you may have to reinforce the rail as the split is very close to the edge and may fail again-same goes for any other damage/ splits - good look.

 

[DBC]

Hi Jed.

Bingy has given excellent advice to you.

His glue recommendation is spot on too. This type of glue will make a strong bond if you don’t put any weight on it until it is fully dried out.

For this to work though it is very important to ensure that the split is forced back exactly into its correct position when the glue is wet so that the timber grains on each side of the split marry back together exactly and stay this way until the glue has dried. You may even be able to achieve this with tightly wrapped painter’s masking tape. Practice it first without the glue to ensure you can mate everything up exactly so that the split disappears when the two halves are forced together.

If the tape won’t force the two halves back together so that the split disappears then you will need to clamp it but I doubt a jubilee clip will be an exact enough for this. Maybe you could borrow or buy some small G shaped screw clamps.

Finally, as long as it won’t hinder the reassembly of the bed you could also consider following the above instructions with the dowel itself fully glued and seated into the dowel hole if you have it loose. That is, if it is not already glued into the other corresponding dowel hole. This may help you with allignment when clamping and you won’t have to redrill the hole afterwards if you don’t have the exact correct sized drillbit.

Good luck and regards to EllieMay, Jethro and Granny.

 

[clogs]

or buy an Ikea metal framed bed.....
we have a Oak framed bed for us but the rental get all metal.....
bomb proof....lol...

 

[Jed Clampett]

Thanks for all your replies. I understand that I need to glue and clamp the split to allow it to dry first, which is what I shall do. Good suggestion from DBC to practice how to hold it all together before doing a final run with the glue. I do have a selection of G-clamps to hold things in place while the glue is drying, and some wood packing pieces.

Regarding the Jubilee hose clip. The plan was to fit these at each end after the glue has dried. I was going bend them into a rectangular shape so they are a good fit over the end of each rail, then gradually tighten them up so they are stopping the glued splits from opening up again. I just need to hide the screw part of the clip on the inside of the frame, so all you can see is a metal band from the outside.

 

[Jed Clampett]

or buy an Ikea metal framed bed.....
we have a Oak framed bed for us but the rental get all metal.....
bomb proof....lol...

Hi clogs, Yes I agree - there's not much that can go wrong with a metal bed frame. When I was a lad in our guest house we used to have metal bed frames with a single spring base that were held together at each end by cast iron brackets that had a tapered wedge that fitted into a corresponding tapered hole on the bed ends. They were a pig to undo and take a bed down in the winter. I'm surprised we did not break them as they needed such a lot of welly with a hammer to get those joints apart.

 

[HamsterJam]

Rather than the jubilee clip, if you want to add strength could you fix a block of wood or a small 90degrees bracket under the bed rail and fixed to the head/foot boards?
Done right this will withstand considerable (downwards) force.

 

[Droogs]

If you have a hammer and a vise, I would suggest after gluing up the beam get an empty bean can and use it to make your own joist hanger sized to fit the beam and secure that to the head board just as you would for a roof rafter.

 

[clogs]

the new type is, undo a 6mm screw and an upward slap with the palm of ur hand...easy peasy...
we have to move beds quite regular for thos people in a wheel chair....as we are fully wheel chair friendly....wet room WC and double bed room downstairs and the garden is fully wheel chair accessable to the outside kitch and s/pool.....
next year I will make and install a stainless steel crane type lift for the access to the s/pool...

 

[Jed Clampett]

Rather than the jubilee clip, if you want to add strength could you fix a block of wood or a small 90degrees bracket under the bed rail and fixed to the head/foot boards?
Done right this will withstand considerable (downwards) force.

Thanks for that excellent idea HJ. The bedposts are 60mm thick pine so there's plenty of room underneath the rails to fix a piece of 2x1 at each bedpost. I'm most likely to go with using the PVA adhesive to fix the cracks on the end of the rails as BingyMan suggested, and then cut some pieces of 2x1 to make blocks to screw and glue to each bedpost, to help support the weight of the bed rails. I might take some pictures as I'm doing this, and upload them when it's all finished.

 

[Terry - Somerset]

Personally I think I would use metal brackets screwed into bedpost and rail - a small piece of 2"x1" risks cracking under stress.

 

[Stevekane]

There are two cracks in the photos, are all 4 rails like this or just the one end? The reason I ask is if its just the one then perhaps its damage rather than a design fault. So why not shorten that rail and re drill the holes? obviously both rails would require doing, most beds have quite a bit of leeway when it comes to the length.
Steve

 

[okeydokey]

Similar to the above but I would use loads of woodworking specific pva so that it runs out of the split then tap the dowel into place and then clamp the wood and close the gap(s).
It looks that in addition to the single dowel there is another hole where fits a screw with a profile shape (can't recall the name) that screws into the vertical part of the bed (post) and then when you assemble the rail to the post it slides into the rail and within the rail (see the hole on the flat surface) goes one of the round things that the profiled end of the screw fits into and the round thing is then turned 90 deg to pull the rail onto the post.
Hmm perhaps called a cam lock fixing.
Then if thought necessary you could put a shelf bracket under the rail/fixed to the post as extra support for the rail to sit on and take some of the downward weight away from the above-mentioned fixings.

 

[okeydokey]

Hi Jed
How did your repair go?

 

[Jed Clampett]

After all the helpful comments I decided to support each end of the rails with some metal stretcher plates screwed into each post. I'm still waiting for some F-clamps to hold the split in the rail together while the PVA glue sets. This is a low priority job for now. When it's done I will post some pics of the work in progress. Thanks again to everyone for all those helpful tips.