A Take Down Camp Bed

I have been working on a take down camp bed for reenactments.  I wanted it to be portable, to basically fit into a duffle size package.  It had to at least look period, it had to support my rather heroic frame and it had to be really comfortable.

I started to research rope beds on the internet and came across this series of blog posts by David Friedman.  He made the plans from a picture of a 13th century Byzantine rope bed.

I really liked the design, but it wasn't exactly portable given since the sides would be at least 6' long.  A package that long isn't going to fit into a sedan  I decided that if I slotted the side rails into an aluminium sleeves then the side rails would each be under 42" in length and so I would have a bed that would pack into a duffle.  Here's the result.

It is 36" wide and 78" long.  Its made of of 4 36" and two 42" long, 2" diameter dowels.  I'm a large man (300lbs) so I figured I would have to use hardwood dowels to support my weight over a 78" long span.  I found oak dowels from Baird Brothers Fine Hardwoods.  Six oak dowels cost $200 dollars.  If I had it to do over again I would either use 2" tulip poplar, or 1-3/8" oak.  Poplar would cost maybe $50 and would support my weight easily I believe.

I found two 12" long by 2" in diameter aluminium sleeves from MetalsDepot and it cost me about $30 dollars.  This isn't exactly period, but when covered up no one will know the difference.  Here's a picture of the bed unmade.  Note the dowels slotted into the sleeves.

For the legs I bought 2 4-1/2' by 4" by 4" fence posts from Home Depot.  I cut both down into four bed legs as pictured below and 16" long.  The rounded bottom piece against the floor was made from a couple of decorative post tops I picked them up at Lowes - each top had a 2-1/2" by 1/4" screw that I epoxied and screwed into the end of the fence post.  

Once I had the legs together and true, I drilled a two 2-16" wide holes 2.5" deep into the square part of the leg, one 1" from the top and the other at right angles 3" from the top.  The beds dowels slot into these holes.  I then painted the legs with white Rustoleum.  

I painted the sleeves that color too. initially initially strung the bed with sisel rope.  This worked just fine but I discovered someone on Etsy that made a canvas bottom that replaces the strung rope.   Let me plug the makers, Kingofzoar1817. The canvas bottom is a perfect replacement for the rope, is easy to set up (stringing the rope can take 30 min or more) and is very comfortable.  So much so I don't need any sort of mattress for the bed.

  

One draw back with rope beds is that the rope (even with my canvas bottom) will stretch a bit. Tightening the rope can be a real pain.  To make this easer to do at the bottom of this bed the canvas piece loops around a 1" dowel that is then secured by a tensioning rope to the 2" bottom dowel by a rope as above.  By tightening the tensioning rope you tighten the entire bed.

The best part of this design is that it disassembles into a small package - duffle size.  To dissemble all you have to do is unstring the tensioning rope and then push the canvas bottom toward the top of the bed.

You can then remove the bottom section of the bed (the legs and cross dowel) from the side dowels and disassemble the bottom section.

Once you push the canvas bottom (or strung rope) up toward the top of the bed you can disassemble the rest of the bed by un-slotting the side dowels from their sleeves and then un-slot and remove the side dowels from the top legs.  You can then bundle up the top and bottom dowels and the canvas bottom (leaving it strung to the top 2" dowel and the 1" tensioning dowel.   Bundled up it looks like this.

You can then wrap it up in a shelter half or into a duffel.  The entire package weighs about 30lbs.  If I had used tulip popular dowels it would weigh half that.

This was a great project and sleeps well.  I expect a lot of good and comfortable use for many years.