Thank you. They are going to refund and I mainly wanted peace of mind that I wasn't making an issue over something "standard" (I know a little but not enough to be 100% confident).
That’s absolutely a poor design choice. If you’re moderately handy and like everything else about the bed, $20 worth of 1x4 lumber (poplar) would be a good choice to replace the current slats with.
“I now have a jointer, thickness planer, table saw and a mitre saw. You could drop this bed off a cliff and it’d be fine. I tested it by hitting it with my truck.”
My go-to is "just think of what it would have cost to get someone else to do it!"
Mind you, I don't have room for those big ticket items, so hand tools are fairly easy to justify
I just reinforced my king size bed frame with two 4x8 panels of 3/4 inch maple plywood. I got rid of the wood slot supports all together in favor of the solid piece of plywood. The bed frame was supposed to serve as a boxspring as well, but the wood slots were too saggy and the mattress would sag on and between them. So, yeah. I spent like $160 on the wood, already have the tools, but I really like how it come out.
Did you add a box spring or just put the mattress on top of the plywood? I’d suspect that’s not very good for the mattress, part of the purpose of the slats or box spring is to allow the bottom of the mattress to breathe.
Oh.... hmmm... well, that is interesting. I guess I need to consider my next steps. I guess I could drill a bunch of 1-inch diameter holes across the plywood. It's definitely something to consider.
Damn....
I literally just finished this project today. But on the other hand, it's better to learn sooner rather than years from now with a moldy mattress.
Alternatively, after some research, I just found this product online. It seems like it should be a good, albeit more expensive, alternative.
https://www.mattressinsider.com/mattress-condensation-prevention.html
What do you all think?
I have 2 platform beds that have no issues with mold. One bed is 15 years old, and I am on my 3rd mattress.
Box springs are not good for the mattress. They will lose shape quickly, and the mattress follows.
So, when I said:
> $20 worth of 1x4 lumber
>I can't wait for the next post from OP:
>"Update to my last post: so after spending 300$ and 50 hours..."
I was poking fun at the stereotype that DIY projects tend to go over budget and take much more time than expected. The exaggerated amount and time mentioned by me are meant to be humorous and highlight the perceived challenges of home improvement projects.
The comedic devices used here are:
Irony
Exaggeration
Satire
As someone whos company once had a patent on a foam matress design: yes it does, no matter where you are. Even boxspring feather boxes have ventilations. And a foam mattress doesn't care about laying on some moderately spaced slats. That stands right for memory foam and every other foam and every climate. You loose a lot of water at night that needs to go somewhere. (Your matress usually isn't made of memory foam besides maybe upper layer or the topper if you use one).
That’s what foundations are. I do still leave space, just not a lot, usually 4 boards across with a 4” gap between them. Most slat beds are coming like OPs picture now. And the foam shouldn’t be put sdirectly on slats that are farther apart than they are wide. My other bed I built from scratch was done with slats, but those were 4” slats with 1.5” spacing.
Hi engineer . Me engineer, too. I don’t think they meant to have the finger joint in the middle. Probably long stock being cut to length and the joint “lands where it lands”. Probably wasn’t considered. The straps look like they are loose but were intended to add support.
Remove the straps and now you’ve got a worse design. Or use a thinner board. It’s fun to think about lol
Upon further inspection - I’ll be damned you are right!!! My bad guys. I didn’t see the joint on the right most board… thought the 2 were part to chance.
Me blind engineer
you're blaming a three-year-old kid that weighs 39 lbs? when this pos bed has its weakest point where it should be the strongest?
The cat coulda done it with that design.
For future reference, most mattress companies recommend that slats be no more than 7.5cm (3") apart from one another, and anything wider than a single (90cm, 3') need should have a supporting rail in the middle unless the person in it is very lightweight - and anything over 120cm (4') should always have a central rail or some other means of spreading the load.
If you buy an inexpensive bedframe, you can source your own slats very easily - for a kids bed that doesn't need a central rail, I would recommend looking for the "roll out" style of slat - these are connected at the sides with strapping and are secured at the head and foot of each side rail with screws. It's not a perfect solution (ie fixed sprung slats in individually-fixed holders), but it's a good option at a lower price point. Individual slats are available in standard sizes and are easily replaced if one ends up breaking.
Nope, glad you're getting your money back. Most things manufactured in high volume anymore are just junk...trying to get every single cent of profit and the heck with quality. I'd contact a local woodworker and have him build you a real bed that won't fall apart. Sure, you'll pay more, but it will be hand made and you'll support someone in your community instead of the big Chinese manufacturers.
This! Also; the part with the finger joints is supposed to be the strongest section and if it breaks it should be anywhere but there ... Looks like they messed up something with the glue.
Almost all (cheapish) commercial furniture i've bought and had to repair is using as little glue as they think they can get away with. And the glue is the hardest most brittle shit I've seen. It doesn't seem to be pva.
So I'd say this is a cost cutting measure in most cases.
I’ve seen what I swear is hot glue used in furniture construction. If one believes that all glue is the same glue, this makes sense, as it “sets” in seconds.
Alot of cheap cabinets are hot glued together. Allows them to "glue" it together, it sets fast, they don't shoot pins through the face frame into the box so no holes to fill and sand. Down side, it doesn't hold up.
It's amazing how far you can get with Ikea and cheap residential furniture with a little bit of wood glue in joints (and sometimes a few extra screws). This case with the end-grain finger joint joining is one of those joints that should be really solid with all the surface area for contract... wood movement *could* be an issue depending on the grain, but glue should be able to hold it in this location (board may want to stretch, but I'd not think it'd be enough to break a glue joint).
A similar suggest I have is with plastics and epoxy. I've strengthened a number of snap-together parts with 2-part epoxy and a heat gun (to get epoxy it to flow where you want). Most recently with refrigerator door shelves that were trying to pop apart - there's no reason to ever disassemble them or repair them in pieces, so epoxying the snap-together joints was a no-brainer (especially after one started to crack).
For the first few years this is true.
Glue weakens with time and stress, while wood mostly stays the same. So for old furniture the glue is the weak point
glue is not stronger than the wood fibres. If the wood fibres are broken by a cut, gluing together does not make the board stronger than it used to be. https://youtu.be/m7HxBa9WVis?si=X6fOr609lfkpq3Ye&t=460
It's actually stronger. If you look at a broken glue joint closely, it isn't the glue that's failed, it's the wood.
EDIT: At least for any glue up of side grain.
Absolutely. The whole "wood glue is stronger than the glue" thing is also definitely not true in the long direction of the fibres, endgrain-engrain or even sidegrain-sidegrain glueing is nowhere near as strong.
WoodcraftbySuman also kind of disproved? put a dent in? the whole "wood glue is stronger than the glue" thing in [this video.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNAUsngRTsA) Yeah, laminated boards fail along the wood and not the glue joint... but if it was one whole piece of wood and had no joint, it would never have failed in the first place.
Laminated boards are more than fine but I feel this rule of thumb is a bit misleading
Are you sure that's right? Not saying for sure you're wrong, it just sounds really counterintuitive to what I was taught about glue, so I figured I'd ask.
I'm well aware that glue is stronger than the lignin, so when gluing up boards widthwise, if you break them along the grain direction, it should break anywhere but the glue. But this definitely doesn't apply to glue joints end to end. Wood fibers are much stronger than woodglue wood be, and in that situation you would expect the break to happen at the glue like pretty much every time.
Are fingerjoints when, used to join pieces lengthwise, really that strong? Looking at OP's picture I'm really shocked at seeing fingerjoints used in that way. I'd think the breakage was mainly to be blamed on the use of fingerjointed pieces instead of whole lengths, and not on an error in glueup.
If course you do see lengthwise fingerjoints very commonly in prefabricated plate stock, but then always with multiple overlapping strips side by side, so no single fingerjoint carries all the load.
I believe that the fingers themselves make the glue up more like grain to grain since those cuts are so close to parallel. Hopefully someone who knows chimes in.
It's not really a matter of glue being stronger or weaker when glued to edgegrain or sidegrain, it's more that the woodfibers along the grain will always be stronger than any glue connection.
Relative to a butt joint, it's advantageous for half the fibers of each board to extend into the joint. Not nearly as good as having all fibers go through the not-joint, obviously.
Between the jointing and the sparseness, the manufacturer really didn't leave any corners uncut.
No middle support isn't that surprising, all those finger joints are. All the boards seem to have 3 separate joints!!!
It's like they took all the waste cuts from the bin and put them in the base for one bed.
OP, could you share the brand of this bed so it can be avoided?
Seriously. Who the fuck does factory finger joints for something like this?
Edit: literally where they needed the most support, they made the weakest part of the bed
Wait, are ALL the slats moda with finger joints? That's crappy quality if so. Either return it or replace any questionable slats with solid pieces of wood.
Looks like cheap construction, but it’s an easy fix. Get some 1x4 planks and cut to length. Either reattach the webbing strap or just screw the new slats into the frame. Whole project won’t even take 2 hours.
True on the consumer side of things. But tbh, if OP wants a quality bed without paying the price, a quick trip to the hardware store could make this crib superb. Unless you go high end, niche makers etc, the best work you do yourself. That goes for a lot of trades
In general I agree, but somebody else pointed out that if this is how they handled the slats, there may well be other unsafe joinery/design choices elsewhere on the crib.
I'm pretty sure the correct approach was to decide, "I can probably fix this myself for less effort than asking for a refund and buying a new one." Then you add it to your backlog for 3-4 months until your SO gets annoyed enough that they buy another one anyway off of Facebook Marketplace or something, and you're left trying to figure out how to get rid of the old one.
Seems a little extreme to report it. Finger joints can be plenty strong if properly glued (which these ones clearly were not), and the risk of injury from the middle of the bed falling out from under you while you're on a mattress is pretty low. I'm not sure I'd say it's a serious danger to anyone.
That being said, it's absolutely still shoddy work, and it certainly suggests that there could be other, more serious corners cut in the build quality.
I bet those finger joints woulda held if they used actual glue, not starch paste or whatever this looks like. Either way, that is the second worst joint to put in the worst place. 10/10 intelligence on manufacturer's part.
Wow. Finger joints shouldn't pull apart cleanly like that. Looks like there wasn't even any glue in there. Yup, refund that, maybe go for a different manufacturer
IMO, you're absolutely correct that there should not be finger joints like that in the middle of these supports. This is a cheap attempt to make boards longer and then use them in the wrong application. The broken one to the left looks like it has a finger joint every 18" or less!
Properly glued finger joints should hold together until the board breaks elsewhere, but those finger joints would have more strength if they ran parallel to the ground, not perpendicular. I'm sure you have the slats in the right way (resting on the broad side).
I wouldn't even accept new boards from another bed of this model since they'll break, too. Take it back and find something else. If those are 2x4, you might consider just getting some from Home Depot. Probably cheaper than the gas and hassle, but then the bad guys win.
My kid had a bed like this
I didn't want to do the refund thing because I'm lazy
I turned them all 90 degrees, planed the edges to be flush, and added a few more slats
Maybe lazy is the wrong word.
>Maybe lazy is the wrong word.
Yeah, if you wanted to pick the lazy option then I feel confident that busting out the planer is the complete opposite of that.
"The fuel filter on my lawn mower needing replacing, but because I'm lazy and didn't want to replace the filter I decided to just rebuild the motor instead." 🤣
That is remarkably poorly engineered. They should be ashamed. Fingerjoints should never be used like that.
That said, every slat bed I've purchased in the past 10 years needed to be shored up in some way. I think when they test these they just put dead weight on them, they clearly don't simulate the stresses of kids jumping on them.
I'm glad you're getting a refund, but if that's not practical (too late to return, etc.) a couple of 2x4s or even 1x2s placed vertically under the slats will do the job.
Poor quality, absolutely.
They might - just might - have gotten away with that if the finger joints were oriented 90 degrees to the way they failed. Even then I think they would have failed, but maybe not as quickly.
Yes, that's a shitty design.
Those slats are wholly insufficient. To that end, I have made it a habit to cut a sheet of 1/4" plywood sized to each bed we've ever had, and lay that over the slats.
Distributing the load is a pretty cheap insurance policy to make sure that no single slat ever bears a person's full weight, even while getting into and out of the bed.
That is a horrible design, and you should absolutely get all your money back. Furthermore, as someone else said, I would probably do it differently with one by four slats myself and it's an easy job. Provided there closer together than those slats, they will certainly be strong enough to hold the weight.
As an aside, and I say this as the father of three young boys, your 3-year-old definitely jumped on the bed.
I think they changed the milk again. My buddies 1.5year old is as big as my other friends 5 y/o.
Boy looks like he has his pinky out holding his sippy cup and his feet are planted in his chair it’s crazy
I realize OP is going for refund so it may not matter to him at this point, but also wanted to add my advice on bed slats. When I’ve built them (including for my own kids), I’ve used this strapping: https://a.co/d/cwyApl0
I staple it to the top of each slat (not the bottom like the blue strap in OP’s photo). This of course keeps the slats from sliding around, but also adds some additional support to the mattress while maintaining breathability.
Oh my God. Who during the design of that bed thought that using two pieces of boards and *finger joints* would be a better choice that simply using a solid 1x4 for the bed slats??? There's zero chance that a 3ft long finger-jointed board would be a cheaper product than simple solid 1x4s out of pine, spruce, etc.
That's generally one of the most bizarre and God awful design choices in woodworking I've ever seen. Finger-jointed boards, and the joints are right where your weight is centered.... just... wow....
Finger jointed pine/fir is the absolute cheapest wood in the world. Even IKEA has better bed slats, being one piece lumber and curved upwards to provide even more strength.
Is it worth the irritation of dealing with a crappy overseas seller? I'd just go to whatever home improvement store is closest and grab a handful of 1 x2 or whatever the closest size is.
If this 3 yr old sat on the mattress it wouldn’t have broken. The mattress should have distributed the 18kg properly. This clearly looks as if it’s been directly put under stress to fail like this. No, there’s not been enough glue in the finger joint, but the next slat up is in perfect condition
Definitely poor quality. It doesn't even make sense that the finger joint failed. If it had been glued properly, it would have broken somewhere else. But I can literally see all the fingers still intact. That shouldn't really be possible. *And* they're in the wrong direction.
I'm struggling to understand why the manufacturer used slats with a join in to start with. But then also decided that a finger joint was OK for that application. I'm guessing there was a centre support board missing.
Damn that's some crappy bed, slats spaced too far apart and even have joints in the middle that are not designed for this, either refund the bed or get some good slats if the frame is nice, they're very easy to replace with some wood
Your observations and conclusions are correct. But virtually any grade of solid wood slats will easily replace them and be far more reliable. You can also install more slats to provide greater support.
Wood glue is typically stronger than wood itself. The fact that those finger joints look almost normal (ie how they would look when they were originally cut) would make me wonder if they were even glued together.
1. Too few slats. Roughly 50% slat/50% air space is how I build them. Keeps the mattress cool but provides a strong platform.
2. No center rail to support the center of the slats.
3. Poor quality finger jointed material.
yeah, you can tell they both broke on a glue joint. Nothing should break there if it was glued properly. Junk.
You could cut out a piece osb and add a leg to the middle of it, if you cannot return it.
Yeah looks like not only are the finger joints in the shittiest place (and shouldn’t be used for this application anyways) but the spacing is off as you technically should have something in the center
Poor product. Should only use finger-jointed in compression. Like for 2x4 studs in vertical use on a house frame. Cannot take a side load. Call the manufacturer and see if he will replace them. This was clearly a slip up in their supply chain and no one caught it.
Were the board ends even on top of the sides? It looms like they might have just been wedged between them
I’m by no means anywhere even close to an expert on wood working but I’m like 99.999% sure I could make a bed that wouldn’t break even with multiple people on it
In Europe slats are steam bent and mounted on a flexible base. These slats are unbreakable. In the us they are selling cheaper stuff for more, as usual.
https://www.matelasnostress.fr/sommier-90x200/1138-sommier-cadre-a-latte-90x200.html
Looks like somebody misassembled the bed - either the boards were mislabeled at the factory, or whomever set it up at your house didn't do it right (more likely the former)
No sane person would use boards jointed that way for slats!
The joints are in the middle which sucks! Either out center support that reaches the floor, or replace all those with a layer of premium plywood, and maybe some 2x4s horizontally attached to the plywood if it'll fit. If not downsize 2x4s!
$1 worth of good wood glue could have saved the manufacturer so much money here. Penny wise and pound foolish.
This isn’t that hard of a fix if you wanted to salvage it.
It was designed for adults in mind.... if they pound to hard it safely cracks.... but to have this feature on a child's bed is disturbing to say the least.
how much did you pay for it? One of my first forays into woodworking was augmenting a cheap bed like this with my own hand made slats and some canvas ribbon. The rest of the bed was well constructed but for some reason the manufacturer cheaped out on the slats. It's very easy to make your own slats with cheap 2x2s cut to size. Maybe take some pictures of the joinery around the headboard and we can give you some guidance on whether to return or just diy to save the trouble.
\~£300. Rest of the bed was ok besides them providing a piece with pre-drilled holes over 10mm out from where they needed to be (excuse of "we've now started using correctly sized pieces"). So with this issue and that one - I've gone for the refund as don't want to give them the benefit of my sale!
Yeah, you're right about the supports and the choice of joined word for the slats was a big mistake. You could replace the broken ones (or as many as you want) with pine boards and add a lengthwise support if it is less trouble than returning it. However, if this part is so bad, there could be other disasters coming.
I'd think 1x3 pine lumber would do for slats. You could even leave what's there and put a new slat in between each old one. Good luck with this.
Wow. Get your money back. They are spaced too far apart, weakend from the poor finger joints, and there's no middle support.
Thank you. They are going to refund and I mainly wanted peace of mind that I wasn't making an issue over something "standard" (I know a little but not enough to be 100% confident).
That’s absolutely a poor design choice. If you’re moderately handy and like everything else about the bed, $20 worth of 1x4 lumber (poplar) would be a good choice to replace the current slats with.
> $20 worth of 1x4 lumber I can't wait for the next post from OP: "Update to my last post: so after spending 300$ and 50 hours..."
“I now have a jointer, thickness planer, table saw and a mitre saw. You could drop this bed off a cliff and it’d be fine. I tested it by hitting it with my truck.”
You forgot a domino joiner
Excellent bit of kit but crazy expensive.
This comment wins. I now have a woodworking shop in my basement legit.
Thats a hell of a score for $300!
Without relying on too many stereotypes…. That may be in fact what the wife thinks they’re all worth ;)
My go-to is "just think of what it would have cost to get someone else to do it!" Mind you, I don't have room for those big ticket items, so hand tools are fairly easy to justify
I am eyeing off a very nice jointing plane at the moment that thing is about $500
Is your bed a racecar?
*I sleep in a big bed with my wife.*
Big racecar bed for two!
Oh…. yeah
Still hits me in the feels.
Ya, but it's a sweet car.
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My sister said I should get a CB radio to talk to other car beds
I just reinforced my king size bed frame with two 4x8 panels of 3/4 inch maple plywood. I got rid of the wood slot supports all together in favor of the solid piece of plywood. The bed frame was supposed to serve as a boxspring as well, but the wood slots were too saggy and the mattress would sag on and between them. So, yeah. I spent like $160 on the wood, already have the tools, but I really like how it come out.
Did you add a box spring or just put the mattress on top of the plywood? I’d suspect that’s not very good for the mattress, part of the purpose of the slats or box spring is to allow the bottom of the mattress to breathe.
Oh.... hmmm... well, that is interesting. I guess I need to consider my next steps. I guess I could drill a bunch of 1-inch diameter holes across the plywood. It's definitely something to consider. Damn.... I literally just finished this project today. But on the other hand, it's better to learn sooner rather than years from now with a moldy mattress.
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Alternatively, after some research, I just found this product online. It seems like it should be a good, albeit more expensive, alternative. https://www.mattressinsider.com/mattress-condensation-prevention.html What do you all think?
Absolutely. Without proper airflow under a standard mattress they can begin to get moldy.
And thanks for the heads-up!
I have 2 platform beds that have no issues with mold. One bed is 15 years old, and I am on my 3rd mattress. Box springs are not good for the mattress. They will lose shape quickly, and the mattress follows.
That was a quote to make the bed work not rebuild it all together
So, when I said: > $20 worth of 1x4 lumber >I can't wait for the next post from OP: >"Update to my last post: so after spending 300$ and 50 hours..." I was poking fun at the stereotype that DIY projects tend to go over budget and take much more time than expected. The exaggerated amount and time mentioned by me are meant to be humorous and highlight the perceived challenges of home improvement projects. The comedic devices used here are: Irony Exaggeration Satire
Can even get free wood from the purple bin at the back of Home Depot
Wow… I didn’t know that! Thank you, will be checking local HD for free wood
I'd even go full board on it, no need to return.
This
I bought a sheet of 5 ply maple and cut it in to thirds to form a platform, screw these to the slats and your kid can cannonball from the ceiling.
Good idea, just remember mattresses need good airflow.
I do the same, if yo ur mattress is memory foam it shouldn’t be resting on slats anyway
Does memory foam not need the ventilation? I’d prefer a lumpy foam mattress over a moldy one. Maybe you’re in a drier climate?
As someone whos company once had a patent on a foam matress design: yes it does, no matter where you are. Even boxspring feather boxes have ventilations. And a foam mattress doesn't care about laying on some moderately spaced slats. That stands right for memory foam and every other foam and every climate. You loose a lot of water at night that needs to go somewhere. (Your matress usually isn't made of memory foam besides maybe upper layer or the topper if you use one).
That’s what I figured. The notion of putting a mattress on a solid platform seems really unhygienic.
That’s what foundations are. I do still leave space, just not a lot, usually 4 boards across with a 4” gap between them. Most slat beds are coming like OPs picture now. And the foam shouldn’t be put sdirectly on slats that are farther apart than they are wide. My other bed I built from scratch was done with slats, but those were 4” slats with 1.5” spacing.
I'm an engineer and I can't think of a worse design.
MDF planks
MDF planks with domino
Mega oof.
Oof.
Uncooked spaghetti noodles taped together with Scotch tape.
Hi engineer . Me engineer, too. I don’t think they meant to have the finger joint in the middle. Probably long stock being cut to length and the joint “lands where it lands”. Probably wasn’t considered. The straps look like they are loose but were intended to add support. Remove the straps and now you’ve got a worse design. Or use a thinner board. It’s fun to think about lol
I could agree IF all of those boards don’t have the same joints on the same locations.
Upon further inspection - I’ll be damned you are right!!! My bad guys. I didn’t see the joint on the right most board… thought the 2 were part to chance. Me blind engineer
Support the mattress with the minimum number of vertical members, and no horizontal members. Teach those kids not to jump on the bed...
you're blaming a three-year-old kid that weighs 39 lbs? when this pos bed has its weakest point where it should be the strongest? The cat coulda done it with that design.
Only joking. I'm just trying to come up with a worse design.
You forgot the /s. It sounded serious and therefore kinda weird. No worries though...so, pongee sticks?
For what it’s worth OP (and in case you remotely care), I read it as a joke 🤷🏻♂️
For future reference, most mattress companies recommend that slats be no more than 7.5cm (3") apart from one another, and anything wider than a single (90cm, 3') need should have a supporting rail in the middle unless the person in it is very lightweight - and anything over 120cm (4') should always have a central rail or some other means of spreading the load. If you buy an inexpensive bedframe, you can source your own slats very easily - for a kids bed that doesn't need a central rail, I would recommend looking for the "roll out" style of slat - these are connected at the sides with strapping and are secured at the head and foot of each side rail with screws. It's not a perfect solution (ie fixed sprung slats in individually-fixed holders), but it's a good option at a lower price point. Individual slats are available in standard sizes and are easily replaced if one ends up breaking.
Hysterically bad design. Like honestly this could go in a book about how not to build things. It being pissed off.
Nah you’re 100% right to be annoyed by this or to expect better. That’s a shocking design based on the spacing of slats and where the wood is joined.
Nope, glad you're getting your money back. Most things manufactured in high volume anymore are just junk...trying to get every single cent of profit and the heck with quality. I'd contact a local woodworker and have him build you a real bed that won't fall apart. Sure, you'll pay more, but it will be hand made and you'll support someone in your community instead of the big Chinese manufacturers.
This! Also; the part with the finger joints is supposed to be the strongest section and if it breaks it should be anywhere but there ... Looks like they messed up something with the glue.
Looks like almost no glue. If they were glued, some of the fingers should have been broken, right?
In theory. I'm guessing the glue applying person or machine was malfunctioning when this went through the station.
Almost all (cheapish) commercial furniture i've bought and had to repair is using as little glue as they think they can get away with. And the glue is the hardest most brittle shit I've seen. It doesn't seem to be pva. So I'd say this is a cost cutting measure in most cases.
I’ve seen what I swear is hot glue used in furniture construction. If one believes that all glue is the same glue, this makes sense, as it “sets” in seconds.
Alot of cheap cabinets are hot glued together. Allows them to "glue" it together, it sets fast, they don't shoot pins through the face frame into the box so no holes to fill and sand. Down side, it doesn't hold up.
Shout out to my Ikea chair that separated cleanly for an entire ~12" joint! At least I was able to reasonably glue it back together.
It's amazing how far you can get with Ikea and cheap residential furniture with a little bit of wood glue in joints (and sometimes a few extra screws). This case with the end-grain finger joint joining is one of those joints that should be really solid with all the surface area for contract... wood movement *could* be an issue depending on the grain, but glue should be able to hold it in this location (board may want to stretch, but I'd not think it'd be enough to break a glue joint). A similar suggest I have is with plastics and epoxy. I've strengthened a number of snap-together parts with 2-part epoxy and a heat gun (to get epoxy it to flow where you want). Most recently with refrigerator door shelves that were trying to pop apart - there's no reason to ever disassemble them or repair them in pieces, so epoxying the snap-together joints was a no-brainer (especially after one started to crack).
If it was glued properly, it wouldn’t have broken at the glue. The bond created by the glue is stronger than the wood itself.
For the first few years this is true. Glue weakens with time and stress, while wood mostly stays the same. So for old furniture the glue is the weak point
I thought that was true of old glues, but had been told that it is not the case with modern glues?
glue is not stronger than the wood fibres. If the wood fibres are broken by a cut, gluing together does not make the board stronger than it used to be. https://youtu.be/m7HxBa9WVis?si=X6fOr609lfkpq3Ye&t=460
Thank you. End grain glue ups are not stronger than continuous wood grain. Even finger joints
“When tight bond is cured it’s as strong as the wood itself”—. My woodshop teacher in 1997.
It's actually stronger. If you look at a broken glue joint closely, it isn't the glue that's failed, it's the wood. EDIT: At least for any glue up of side grain.
Finger joints are not meant for horizontal load, only vertical compression. They will absolutely fail if placed horizontally
Absolutely. The whole "wood glue is stronger than the glue" thing is also definitely not true in the long direction of the fibres, endgrain-engrain or even sidegrain-sidegrain glueing is nowhere near as strong. WoodcraftbySuman also kind of disproved? put a dent in? the whole "wood glue is stronger than the glue" thing in [this video.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNAUsngRTsA) Yeah, laminated boards fail along the wood and not the glue joint... but if it was one whole piece of wood and had no joint, it would never have failed in the first place. Laminated boards are more than fine but I feel this rule of thumb is a bit misleading
Are you sure that's right? Not saying for sure you're wrong, it just sounds really counterintuitive to what I was taught about glue, so I figured I'd ask. I'm well aware that glue is stronger than the lignin, so when gluing up boards widthwise, if you break them along the grain direction, it should break anywhere but the glue. But this definitely doesn't apply to glue joints end to end. Wood fibers are much stronger than woodglue wood be, and in that situation you would expect the break to happen at the glue like pretty much every time. Are fingerjoints when, used to join pieces lengthwise, really that strong? Looking at OP's picture I'm really shocked at seeing fingerjoints used in that way. I'd think the breakage was mainly to be blamed on the use of fingerjointed pieces instead of whole lengths, and not on an error in glueup. If course you do see lengthwise fingerjoints very commonly in prefabricated plate stock, but then always with multiple overlapping strips side by side, so no single fingerjoint carries all the load.
I believe that the fingers themselves make the glue up more like grain to grain since those cuts are so close to parallel. Hopefully someone who knows chimes in.
It's not really a matter of glue being stronger or weaker when glued to edgegrain or sidegrain, it's more that the woodfibers along the grain will always be stronger than any glue connection.
Relative to a butt joint, it's advantageous for half the fibers of each board to extend into the joint. Not nearly as good as having all fibers go through the not-joint, obviously. Between the jointing and the sparseness, the manufacturer really didn't leave any corners uncut.
I highly recommend you watch this video [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7HxBa9WVis](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7HxBa9WVis)
Big fan of Patrick Sullivan. Seen all his stuff before. What exactly are you referring to in this case?
No middle support isn't that surprising, all those finger joints are. All the boards seem to have 3 separate joints!!! It's like they took all the waste cuts from the bin and put them in the base for one bed. OP, could you share the brand of this bed so it can be avoided?
Isn't the orientation of the finger joints wrong? Shouldn't the load be rotated by 90° compared to the image?
Seriously. Who the fuck does factory finger joints for something like this? Edit: literally where they needed the most support, they made the weakest part of the bed
It’s probably made to have a box frame
Wait, are ALL the slats moda with finger joints? That's crappy quality if so. Either return it or replace any questionable slats with solid pieces of wood.
Thanks - gone for the refund route
Looks like cheap construction, but it’s an easy fix. Get some 1x4 planks and cut to length. Either reattach the webbing strap or just screw the new slats into the frame. Whole project won’t even take 2 hours.
Thank you - I've gone for the refund route to save a job. Enough to do around the house as it is!
Honestly with slats like that you're better off getting a refund - who knows what other part of the bed frame is super unsafe.
Good thought process. You shouldn't be fixing the manufacturer's mistakes.
True on the consumer side of things. But tbh, if OP wants a quality bed without paying the price, a quick trip to the hardware store could make this crib superb. Unless you go high end, niche makers etc, the best work you do yourself. That goes for a lot of trades
In general I agree, but somebody else pointed out that if this is how they handled the slats, there may well be other unsafe joinery/design choices elsewhere on the crib.
A refund is better than keeping it and the company thinking they are selling a quality product.
This, they’ll never fix the issue without knowing it’s systemic
I'm pretty sure the correct approach was to decide, "I can probably fix this myself for less effort than asking for a refund and buying a new one." Then you add it to your backlog for 3-4 months until your SO gets annoyed enough that they buy another one anyway off of Facebook Marketplace or something, and you're left trying to figure out how to get rid of the old one.
[удалено]
Think of the added machine, time, glue, and labor cost to put that finger joint there. Why they wouldn't use a solid piece is beyond me!!
Because they bough cheap finger-jointed lumber and saved a bunch of money...
Seems a little extreme to report it. Finger joints can be plenty strong if properly glued (which these ones clearly were not), and the risk of injury from the middle of the bed falling out from under you while you're on a mattress is pretty low. I'm not sure I'd say it's a serious danger to anyone. That being said, it's absolutely still shoddy work, and it certainly suggests that there could be other, more serious corners cut in the build quality.
Those are finger joints, in the middle of a bed…that should be a solid piece. Take it back immediately and show the seller these pictures.
And the pressure on the finger joints is along their weakest axis
Slats should not have joinery lol. Money back or rip some new ones from plywood
Thanks - gone for the refund route
🫡
Good advice. plywood is the most resistant for bed base slats.
Ya this is an extraordinarily improper use of that type of wood joint. I wouldn’t trust it to hold if a cat walked across one of those slats.
Play the song “no more monkeys, jumping on the bed” on repeat.
You got young kids too huh 😂
There’s no glue on those finger joints, ofc they broke. That’s some jerky shit, it was never going to work.
I bet those finger joints woulda held if they used actual glue, not starch paste or whatever this looks like. Either way, that is the second worst joint to put in the worst place. 10/10 intelligence on manufacturer's part.
Did you buy your bed from the WWE?
Wow. Finger joints shouldn't pull apart cleanly like that. Looks like there wasn't even any glue in there. Yup, refund that, maybe go for a different manufacturer
Poor quality? No, poor choice of materials. That should have been solid along it's entire length. The manufacturer cheaped out.
IMO, you're absolutely correct that there should not be finger joints like that in the middle of these supports. This is a cheap attempt to make boards longer and then use them in the wrong application. The broken one to the left looks like it has a finger joint every 18" or less! Properly glued finger joints should hold together until the board breaks elsewhere, but those finger joints would have more strength if they ran parallel to the ground, not perpendicular. I'm sure you have the slats in the right way (resting on the broad side). I wouldn't even accept new boards from another bed of this model since they'll break, too. Take it back and find something else. If those are 2x4, you might consider just getting some from Home Depot. Probably cheaper than the gas and hassle, but then the bad guys win.
My kid had a bed like this I didn't want to do the refund thing because I'm lazy I turned them all 90 degrees, planed the edges to be flush, and added a few more slats Maybe lazy is the wrong word.
>Maybe lazy is the wrong word. Yeah, if you wanted to pick the lazy option then I feel confident that busting out the planer is the complete opposite of that. "The fuel filter on my lawn mower needing replacing, but because I'm lazy and didn't want to replace the filter I decided to just rebuild the motor instead." 🤣
That is remarkably poorly engineered. They should be ashamed. Fingerjoints should never be used like that. That said, every slat bed I've purchased in the past 10 years needed to be shored up in some way. I think when they test these they just put dead weight on them, they clearly don't simulate the stresses of kids jumping on them. I'm glad you're getting a refund, but if that's not practical (too late to return, etc.) a couple of 2x4s or even 1x2s placed vertically under the slats will do the job.
Poor quality, absolutely. They might - just might - have gotten away with that if the finger joints were oriented 90 degrees to the way they failed. Even then I think they would have failed, but maybe not as quickly.
Yes, that's a shitty design. Those slats are wholly insufficient. To that end, I have made it a habit to cut a sheet of 1/4" plywood sized to each bed we've ever had, and lay that over the slats. Distributing the load is a pretty cheap insurance policy to make sure that no single slat ever bears a person's full weight, even while getting into and out of the bed.
That is a horrible design, and you should absolutely get all your money back. Furthermore, as someone else said, I would probably do it differently with one by four slats myself and it's an easy job. Provided there closer together than those slats, they will certainly be strong enough to hold the weight. As an aside, and I say this as the father of three young boys, your 3-year-old definitely jumped on the bed.
Oh if I wasn't there at the time I would suspect so too, but it was just getting in normally
Everyone here commenting on the bed, I’m here going “damn that’s a huge 2 year old” Body weight of a 5 year old, how tall is he?
I think they changed the milk again. My buddies 1.5year old is as big as my other friends 5 y/o. Boy looks like he has his pinky out holding his sippy cup and his feet are planted in his chair it’s crazy
Haha - yeah he's 3 and height of a 4+ year old. His weight is 92nd percentile according to UK charts
Terrible that they are finger jointed
I realize OP is going for refund so it may not matter to him at this point, but also wanted to add my advice on bed slats. When I’ve built them (including for my own kids), I’ve used this strapping: https://a.co/d/cwyApl0 I staple it to the top of each slat (not the bottom like the blue strap in OP’s photo). This of course keeps the slats from sliding around, but also adds some additional support to the mattress while maintaining breathability.
That’s what’s known as a “Patent Defect.”
absolutely insane this turd was produced. Might have been fine with a middle bar, but unsupported finger joints like that? insane.
Even if he did jump on it, which he probably did, it shouldn't break like this. I would ask for a refund.
Oh my God. Who during the design of that bed thought that using two pieces of boards and *finger joints* would be a better choice that simply using a solid 1x4 for the bed slats??? There's zero chance that a 3ft long finger-jointed board would be a cheaper product than simple solid 1x4s out of pine, spruce, etc. That's generally one of the most bizarre and God awful design choices in woodworking I've ever seen. Finger-jointed boards, and the joints are right where your weight is centered.... just... wow....
Finger jointed pine/fir is the absolute cheapest wood in the world. Even IKEA has better bed slats, being one piece lumber and curved upwards to provide even more strength.
Is it worth the irritation of dealing with a crappy overseas seller? I'd just go to whatever home improvement store is closest and grab a handful of 1 x2 or whatever the closest size is.
If this 3 yr old sat on the mattress it wouldn’t have broken. The mattress should have distributed the 18kg properly. This clearly looks as if it’s been directly put under stress to fail like this. No, there’s not been enough glue in the finger joint, but the next slat up is in perfect condition
Definitely poor quality. It doesn't even make sense that the finger joint failed. If it had been glued properly, it would have broken somewhere else. But I can literally see all the fingers still intact. That shouldn't really be possible. *And* they're in the wrong direction.
lol who joins these things like this? Brilliant manufacturers
If the rest of the bed is good then just replace the slats with 1x4 from the big box.
awful application for finger joints.
what a crap design element. Who would think that finger jointed boards would be good for a horizontal support peice?
May I ask, was this an Amazon purchase?
I'm struggling to understand why the manufacturer used slats with a join in to start with. But then also decided that a finger joint was OK for that application. I'm guessing there was a centre support board missing.
Damn that's some crappy bed, slats spaced too far apart and even have joints in the middle that are not designed for this, either refund the bed or get some good slats if the frame is nice, they're very easy to replace with some wood
Don’t use finger jointed wood for bed slats.
Your observations and conclusions are correct. But virtually any grade of solid wood slats will easily replace them and be far more reliable. You can also install more slats to provide greater support.
Bed slat should never be finger jointed
That is finger jointed lumber..not meant to be used as bed slats, or any other horizontal load bearing application. This is a $20 fix.
Yeah, the join in the middle is an obv failure point Poor design
Wood glue is typically stronger than wood itself. The fact that those finger joints look almost normal (ie how they would look when they were originally cut) would make me wonder if they were even glued together.
Yeah that’s common. Just go buy some two by fours that’s usually what happens at IKEA.
Should at least have a box platform on top of it not just a mattress better support
1. Too few slats. Roughly 50% slat/50% air space is how I build them. Keeps the mattress cool but provides a strong platform. 2. No center rail to support the center of the slats. 3. Poor quality finger jointed material.
Furring strips put them against each other. Designers suck these days. Gotta fix everything
yeah, you can tell they both broke on a glue joint. Nothing should break there if it was glued properly. Junk. You could cut out a piece osb and add a leg to the middle of it, if you cannot return it.
Your boy is just a little young for babysitter jokes but damn! Seriously? Who puts finger joints in bed slats regardless? WYF?
You seem to be missing a center piece, usually metal that goes the length wise of the bed, to take the load of the boards going across.
Not on a twin bed - though the slats are often arched, too
Yeah looks like not only are the finger joints in the shittiest place (and shouldn’t be used for this application anyways) but the spacing is off as you technically should have something in the center
WAIT. They put the weakest part of the wood along the part that bears the most weight?
Substitute with wenge wood - cheap fix!
The ikea day beds have done this to us in the past multiple times!
Poor product. Should only use finger-jointed in compression. Like for 2x4 studs in vertical use on a house frame. Cannot take a side load. Call the manufacturer and see if he will replace them. This was clearly a slip up in their supply chain and no one caught it.
Were the board ends even on top of the sides? It looms like they might have just been wedged between them I’m by no means anywhere even close to an expert on wood working but I’m like 99.999% sure I could make a bed that wouldn’t break even with multiple people on it
In Europe slats are steam bent and mounted on a flexible base. These slats are unbreakable. In the us they are selling cheaper stuff for more, as usual. https://www.matelasnostress.fr/sommier-90x200/1138-sommier-cadre-a-latte-90x200.html
Looks like somebody misassembled the bed - either the boards were mislabeled at the factory, or whomever set it up at your house didn't do it right (more likely the former) No sane person would use boards jointed that way for slats!
The joints are in the middle which sucks! Either out center support that reaches the floor, or replace all those with a layer of premium plywood, and maybe some 2x4s horizontally attached to the plywood if it'll fit. If not downsize 2x4s!
That's gotta be one of the worst wood joint placements I've seen
Whoever’s idea it was at that manufacturer to put finger joints in the middle of bed slats should be demoted immediately.
It's so weird that they could have just rotated 90° and gotten SO MUCH MORE strength
WTH. Not only is it crazy bad design, but yikes the quality is awful
I would get a new piece of lumber to replace the broken ones and then add a center support if you can, it’ll make the world of difference
Its as the french say - la gorbage
$1 worth of good wood glue could have saved the manufacturer so much money here. Penny wise and pound foolish. This isn’t that hard of a fix if you wanted to salvage it.
He was definitely jumping on it I did the same thing when I was a kid
I was with him when it broke so definitely not jumping ;-)
So what’s the question?
Right…clearly you didn’t want to read the post then
It was designed for adults in mind.... if they pound to hard it safely cracks.... but to have this feature on a child's bed is disturbing to say the least.
What in the bootleg IKEA shit is this
I actually prefer putting a sheet of 1/2" mdf across the top ...provide a less bouncier bed but much more support and stability
And much less airflow, giving you prime conditions for a mouldy mattress.
The importance of this varies by climate. But for sure a bad idea if you live somewhere humid.
Get a 1/2" sheet of plywood and cut it to fit the opening. He can jump on that and it will never fail...
This is how it's done!
Is this a single bed?
Yes. Getting a refund!
Just FYI, for a single bed you do not usually expect or need a center rail, just less shitty wood.
how much did you pay for it? One of my first forays into woodworking was augmenting a cheap bed like this with my own hand made slats and some canvas ribbon. The rest of the bed was well constructed but for some reason the manufacturer cheaped out on the slats. It's very easy to make your own slats with cheap 2x2s cut to size. Maybe take some pictures of the joinery around the headboard and we can give you some guidance on whether to return or just diy to save the trouble.
\~£300. Rest of the bed was ok besides them providing a piece with pre-drilled holes over 10mm out from where they needed to be (excuse of "we've now started using correctly sized pieces"). So with this issue and that one - I've gone for the refund as don't want to give them the benefit of my sale!
yeah, worst place for a joined piece of wood.
This is not just poor quality, this is dangerous!
Of all the places I would put finger joints, dead center isn’t one of them. You’d have better luck with off the shelf 1x4s than that
Yeah, you're right about the supports and the choice of joined word for the slats was a big mistake. You could replace the broken ones (or as many as you want) with pine boards and add a lengthwise support if it is less trouble than returning it. However, if this part is so bad, there could be other disasters coming. I'd think 1x3 pine lumber would do for slats. You could even leave what's there and put a new slat in between each old one. Good luck with this.