The four posts are constructed with 3/4" stock and lock miter joints. I spent a lot of time practicing lock miter joints and I was held down by the fact that my router bit didn't come with any instructions.  It's fairly difficult to set up and you need a router table but once you get the hang of it, it's a useful and strong joint.

I got this clamping tip on www.woodnet.net. It's difficult to clamp every inch of a 50" pole.  I went to a local bicycle repair shop and asked for a free inner tube that they had replaced.  I clamped one end to the work the tightly wrapped the piece with the tube.  Next, I used a 6" C-clamp to pull the work together, no normal human can get the clamping pressure with his bare hands.  Once it was pulled together the inner tube held it in place.  The process was to squeeze, move down a few inches, squeeze, etc.  I repeated this for each side then made a final pass looking for imperfections.

I used an old #4 Stanley hand plane for the surfacing.  That's not a gap in the joint, it's a shadow line.  This kind of joint allows you to have nice face grain that wraps around on every side.  But you need to shift the wood a bit to compensate for the 1/8" kerf.  Make it long and cut it to length.

Now that the posts are assembled I worked on the curved stiles.  I marked out the curves and the location of the mortises and went to the bandsaw.  I sanded the curved waste material and used it as my sanding block.  The sawhorses kept moving around while I was sanding the piece so my daughter was more than happy to help me out by holding it down.

Here's another shot of her holding down the sawhorse.

I used my mortise marking gauge to mark two of the edges for the mortises.

Next, I used my saddle square to mark the other two edges.  I marked the left and right sides of the edges before I cut it out with the bandsaw so this is really just to give me a line to register the chisel in.

You can't really see it but I used a 6" rule and a sharp pencil to mark the center of the mortise.  Then I used an awl to give me a little hole to register the auger in.

I learned during my practice mortises that I wasn't tall enough to use the auger on top of my bench without a stand.  I had some cedar landscaping timber in the garage so I made this stand.  The picture doesn't do it justice but I really like the way it turned out.  It's sort of rustic and the rails are book matched.  I used dowels for the joinery.  It's sized to slide under the bench for storage.

Colin is giving the old auger a try.  On a side note, if you ever lack humility just mount a lighted magnifying fixture like you see there.  You'll find flaws you never knew you had. :-)

I think this is my favorite part.  It's satisfying to remove 90% of the wood with my brace and bit.

Ahhhh, the fruits of my labor.  Now it's time to break out the chisels and square up these holes.

My technique is getting pretty good.  This picture shows me using a bench chisel but I did the bulk of the removal with a mortising chisel.  The mortising chisel is nice because it doesn't have a wedge on the side of the chisel to drive the cutting edge away from the circle created by the drill bit.  I timed myself, it takes about 2 minutes and 15 seconds for me to square up an auger hole into a mortise.

After I cut about 50 5/8"x 5/8" stiles on the table saw I prepared the surface.  They were so narrow that my #4 hand plane was kind of "tippy".  My hand scraper didn't leave a really great surface but my Veritas cabinet scraper did a great job.  On the other hand, I made about 50 of these stiles and they each have 4 faces.  200 sides will have nearly anybody thinking that maybe a drum sander would be kind of nice. :-)

I used three or four passes from 220 grit sandpaper to take the sharpness off of the edges.  I just pinched it so that it didn't touch the face of the work.  Somewhere out there a purist is complaining that sandpaper touched my project.  However, I liked the effect it had.

When they are stacked like this the stiles and rails really don't look like 50 hours worth of effort. :-)

I used some poplar scraps to create 1 1/2" x 1 1/2" x 10" solid centers.  After I ran out of poplar I used Douglas fir 2x4s cut to size.  I wanted a soft wood so that if it had to compress it could.

Here I go again, removing the waste for another mortise.  I think I can safely add mortise and tenon joinery to my woodworking resume.

Here's a finished mortise.  I know the bottom isn't flat.  Don't tell anybody. :-)  I've put so much work into this bed that I really don't want to mess anything up at this stage.  I take a lot of time before each joint.

My next step was to do a dry fit and then measure every stile and cut it to length.  While I was at it, I picked the nicest face of each stile and numbered it.  I made extra stiles so that I could reject some if they didn't meet quality control.

The headboard glue up was tough, my wife helped me out with the entire operation.  First I dry fitted all the stiles.  In the process I broke one and had to trim another.  After that was done I just measured to see if it would fit the legs.  It was fine.

This glue up would have been a nightmare without my wife's help.  We used 4' Cabinet Master's clamps to crank everything in place while putting the stiles in the rails.  Next, we brought the legs over and used 10' pipe clamps to hold everything together.  Most of my projects are pretty large so my 10' clamps come in handy more often that I thought they would.  Another tip, white Elmer's glue is the same thing as Yellow Elmer's glue (which I normally use) except that it doesn't have a chemical to speed up drying.  If I need extra open time on a project I use white glue.

I'm measuring for a dry fit while Hope is sweeping up.  Like most four year olds, she generates more dust and enthusiasm than results.  I found that a folding ruler with a brass extension is the ideal tool for measuring inside something.  My tape measure kept folding over and I had to add an 1/8" to the measurement to account for the metal tip thing.  Yuck.

The glue up for the footboard was intense too.  Again, my wife gave me a hand.

I'm getting closer.  Here's the headboard and footboard all glued up.

I made a template for the corbels and used it to mark the outline.  Next, I cut it proud of the line at the bandsaw.  I'd use a frame saw in keeping with my Neanderthal style but I'm still getting the hang of cutting well with one.  Next I attached the template to the piece and trimmed it to size at my router table with a pattern trimming bit.  I don't have a spokeshave so the router table was the only option.  They aren't trimmed and their surfaces aren't prepared yet in this picture.

The spindle glue-up caused both the headboard and the footboard to bow a bit.  I thought I clamped the middle properly but I guess I didn't.  I used a piece of string to mark my desired level and then I started planing.

Here's a shot of the #7 I used to level it off.

This is the mortise for the bed rail hardware.  The hardware fits in the groove pretty snugly, I'm happy with the way it came out.  I left wood above the hardware (it's upside down in this picture) because that's the direction that force will be applied to it when people are in the bed.

That thing sticking out is a 3/8" dowel.  It's driven in behind the bed rail fastener because screws don't hold in end grain very well.  The dowel should provide a better gripping surface for the hardware.  I trimmed the extra dowel off after the picture of course.  Also, it only shows on the bottom, it's not a through dowel.

These dowels serve two purposes.  First, they provide alignment for the top of the headboard.  Second, they provide a better gluing surface than the end grain for holding the board in place.  One of my boards had a 1/4" twist over 6' that I wanted to hold down mechanically.  I'm slightly concerned about how they'll react to wood movement but they are only 2" apart so I expect it to work out ok.  One dowel would have handled more wood movement but it wouldn't have worked out the twist.

This is the glue-up for the headboard.  I've been building a lot of large projects lately so I've gathered a pair of 6' (and 10') clamps.  I didn't realize how often I'd be using them.

This is the glue-up for the footboard.  As Norm would say, "Let's let this cook overnight." :-)

These are the rails that support the mattress.  The plans called for simply screwing them in but I thought a tongue and groove joint would be stronger and nicer.  Also, I had gotten this far without any metal in the project so I didn't want to break my stride. :-)

Here are the rails getting mated to the slat supports via tongue and groove joint.

This is the only metal in the project.  It's the bed rail fastening hardware.  It was slightly too long to fit my bed rails so I had to grind about 1/8" of length from both sides.  Of course, the side that fit into the leg didn't need any modification.

I have a simple crosscut sled with a purpleheart fence that I use for cutting panels or for long crosscuts like this one.  This is the support for under the box spring.

These are the completed box spring supports.  I wanted to do something to prevent sagging.  I considered putting a leg in the middle of each rail but I didn't want anything that might not last and I didn't have any ideas for something that would look nice.  I ended up going with a T system.  It's kind of like an I beam but there is only one horizontal section.  They are very strong.  I used sassafras for these rails because I didn't want to waste expensive cherry on a section of the bed that will never be seen.  Also, sassafras is a stronger wood.

The reason that it's wet in this picture is that I wiped away the excess glue with a wet rag.  I have no plans to apply a finish to the supporting slats so a wet rag should be fine.

Here she is right before her I start on the finish.  All the surfaces are planed and scraped and it's ready to go.

The first step in finishing it was to apply a  coat of Watco Danish oil.  Next, I mixed a 2 lb cut of blond shellac, seen sitting on the router table, and padded on 4 coats, sanding with 320 between each coat.  After the final coat I'll rub it down with 0000 steel wool and wiped off any dust.

At last, the bed is finished.  Here's a picture without the mattress.

Here's another picture without the mattress.

Now with the mattress in place.

For some reason it looks like the footboard is lighter on the left than it is on the right.  In real life, it looks nice and even.

A few months after I built this bed I finished a pair of matching nightstands.  It's hard to see the far nightstand but there is a matching piece on each side of the bed.