Stayed in a hotel last year for a wedding which had a near identical bunk bed and had already half failed in the same way on the *top* bunk and we could see it was about to go as eldest climbed up. No other rooms available, weekend so no handyman available, blah blah blah. As luck would have it, I had a couple of screws, mini tool kit, and some strips of timber in the boot so I set about making a bodge repair job to last the weekend. Trickiest bit was sawing using my tiny multi tool saw but it did the job and actually the repair would probably last longer than the original construction did! Was less hassle than any of the other options!
The pith of a tree should never be used for any kind of construction ,it is the weakest part of the tree ,of course the Chinese do not care how many kids they kill.
I have a basic Ikea pine bed and I couldn’t believe the strength built into it! I do think while Ikea in particular may make furniture out of basic and cheaper materials their engineering and quality control is very good.
could you please advise how the top bunk connects to the bottom bunk? I have a very similar bed I bought cheap and we can't fit the top to the bottom! does it use dowells? please assist dude!
Thank you very much for this video. I have bought two years ago a bunker bed with a slide for my children. I already had removed the slide because it was very poorly fixed to the bed. Now I checked the system used to hold the mattress it is exactly the same of your daughter.
Good video. Points out so much of what is wrong with cheap furniture. A whole bunch of compromises to keep the materials cost down. Most of it is just trash. I built a bunk bed nearly 40 years ago out of similar "quality" lumber the difference is that I understood that lumber like that was of questionable strength so I up-sized all the pieces. Essentially "2x6" rails fastened to "4x4" notched posts held together with 8mm bolts. Still in use today and still solid. More recently I built a bed like this that was to be painted. Needed is to be a little more petite than my previous one. Made the ends of pine but realized pine in those dimensions pine was too variable in strength for the rails, so made the rails from hardwood using steel brackets at the corners. I suspect it will hold up. As for the brown "rot" shown in your video, I don't know what it is exactly, but I've seen similar discoloration in softwoods here in North America. I think it's more a defect rather than rot. I don't know if I blame the bed manufacturer because it can be unseen in some pieces, BUT you can blame them for using wood of such questionable strength for such an important load bearing member.
Hi Andy I ran into this problem several times in the last few years before I retired, I fixed it by making new rails for the bed out of a hard wood or a good quality plywood. It was a expensive repair but the store I was doing the work for was paying it, what always troubled me was the store continued to purchase the same bed set from the same supplier for several years with out making them correct the defective way they were building the bed. I guess they thought it was cheeper to repair a few under warranty then to spend a few extra dollars and making it correctly.
Quite a few were returned but they only had a one year warranty, so after that I think a lot ended up in the garbage dump , no wonder the store went under.
In the States we have a technical name for furniture like that we refer to it as garbage. My sons bed had the same exact thing happen to it and he did get cut happy to hear your daughter escaped that fait. Thank you for taking the time to call out these so called furniture makers correction garbage makers.
Using short pieces is not the problem, when solid wood is used in small cross section deformations appears, specially in fast growing wood, i don’t know which specie is but looking at the separation between the growing rings and the mass presence of knots, definitely is a fast growing specie usually used for particle board, mdf or competitive plywood. I mention that short pieces in that positions is not a problem if they’ve designed to support and transmit the weight of the user to the main Beam with a trustworthy joint, here is the first problem a bad designed joint. Not enough glue and an inadequate method to maintain the faces close together while that poor amount of glue sets. I’m referred not to the nails but to the flatness of the pieces, the short ones are made this way to “eliminate” waviness as i said before, but the long beams are not flat enough to match the short ones. Using pressure to guarantee face matching while the glue sets was not well designed, some genius think that using nails was enough like you do when fixing decorative moldings. The channel they made is only to facilitate fast assembly but the gap between pieces remains as you can see the original glue line not disturbed. I think that a hotmelt glue is the solution for this assembly in mass production like edge banding that allows 30 or more m/min today. The main beam made with two long strips is not a problem, glues today are as strong as you need like good metal weld and you can select the correct glue with the correct assembly to achieve the same strength or more than the material you use. Here we can see the producer meets the goal and is because the use some kind of pressing methodology that the pieces are held together during the glue sets, this is made for many years pushing one side glued long wood strips crosswise between two heated plates 5 or more meter long in the flow direction. The beam problem in you case is the incorrect use of fast growing wood species for structural assembly, fast growing wood strips has to be chopped to eliminate knots and other defects, then the head and tail is finger jointed to obtain a long piece of good wood and then these strips are glued sidewise to obtain a structural element for trustworthy use. The dowels without glue is not a problem, the central conector make the glue function, keeping the structural pieces together to allow the dowels resist the shearing force in that joint. In mass production is important a good engineering like Ikea have and this year have received 7 Red Dot Awards. Red Dot Award is an internationally organised competition which reviews the best products of the year. Saludos Gerardo
I have a "solid oak" bed that I bought a number of years ago, that broke recently. Although the head board and foot board are solid oak (although glued smaller pieces), believe it or not, the rails connecting the head and foot board are .... wait for it .... oak veneered MDF. Yep. WTF!? ... the rails are the weakest point in the whole frame and the they used MDF? it's clearly designed to fail.
No, just designed to look good so you buy it while being as cheap as possible to build. Most companies put no thought at all into the strength of the finished item.
You're lucky the hotel didn't try to charge you for damages when in all reality they should have been paying you to fix their issue and refunding you for part of your stay due to the bed being broken
Hi Andy. Bloody good call. I've checked by youngest sons bed and even though the slat support is glued and screwed and one part. My other concern is that the side rail is also laminated like your example. Using a pull bolt on the side rail on the glue line is also a concern as the majority of the point load is on the glue line of the lamination. There is no reason why this glue line should fail unless the assembler of the bed goes crazy on the tightening process. However shouldn't there be a better method of attachment of the rails so the securing bolt fails before the wood is potentially over stressed during assembly instead? I've seen a better version of the "bolt and round nut in a hole" method which acts like a claw covering the full width of the side rail. Slat supports made of 20mm Plywood would also add support to the rails too. My lads have a bleeding disorder so those nails could be worse than for the average kid. Again good call and I'll be sharing this video with my friends and local school/nursery. Giles.
Although my double bed looks a lot different, it is constructed in almost exactly the same way. The only differences are that the slat supports are screwed on and that there is no housing/rebate at all. It also failed in a very similar way when I sat on it to put my socks on one morning. In my case the main side rail failed because there was a large knot occupying a large proportion of the width of the rail. One of the screws that hold the slat supports also passed through this area of the rail next to the knot, the split passed through that point. I bought some new relatively knot-free wood and replaced the rail. I used the same construction but planed the parts smooth where they fit together and made sure there was a good glue joint for the slat support.
I bought bunk beds like this for my grandkids in 2012..They are only used when they stay at mine...must admit they have been good...My youngest grandson needs a new bed and as these are still good I said she could have the bunk beds ...I'm worried now that if we take them apart they might become unstable...
Good informative video, I had a similar problem with a bed from a well known Department Store chain, the problem was with the wooden slats which had become brittle due to forced kiln drying of the wood, the bed was replaced free of charge. The damage to your wood looks like termite damage.
I remember having a divan bed not too many years ago that the cat, as cats do, had clawed the cover material off the corner and before I chopped it up I noticed it had been made of old chipboard kitchen units and other bits of scrap. We're just been taken for a ride with cheap furniture.
And to think that we all automatically trust companies when buying things like these. Thanks for sharing and going through this. Looking forward to part 2!
What I took away from your 15 minute long video? Make sure to clamp glued objects together for proper bonding. Thank you very much 😊 I am looking forward to your part 2 of this series.
A very interesting video. I'm pleased to hear that your daughter wasn't seriously hurt and that the retailer is investigating the issue. I bought an Ikea bed last year with a pine frame. It's all made quite efficiently with ex. 3x1in timber. People will occasionally comment on my assembly video, asking whether it's strong enough! It's been fine so far. They've stapled two pieces of 3x1in face to face, overlapping in a way that creates a rebate for the bed slats... If that makes sense? It's almost like the tiny batten on your rails but deeper and better able to take a load. I am a little bit concerned by the presence of pith and the fact that it only appears to be stapled together with no glue. I've thought about adding a load of screws (I don't think they're renown for shear strength) but dowels, glued in place, could be a better option. Thanks for the video. I'm off to take a look at Part 2.
We have a Benson for Beds version of that style of bunk bed and as soon as I saw the captive nut thing you can tell its a bean counters love affiar. As it is a press mild steel plate that has kind of the trapped to form a crude thread. Luckily for us Bensons for Beds didn't go down the super cheap and nasty route as the captive nuts are soild steel and uses really good quality materials. We did have a Double bed that was made in the same way as your bunk beds. Those cheap and nasty capitve nuts can easily pull the wood out from where they have recessed in to allow you to bolt the bed frame together. It was second hand as we need to a bed and fast as we had just moved house and needed a bed for guests, The wife bought if off Facebook's market place. I had to repair the bed to start with, and in the end it's slowly being burnt in the log burner as kindling as my Eldest finished it off by jumping on it and splitting several slats and one of the rails and the snapping the centre support. The Bed ends have been let in the back garden for about four moths and they delaminated within weeks of being put out there as I have no room to store them in the workshop. Next Time we need new beds I will be making them myself, regardsless of how long it takes to make them.
Hi Andy, I have had wood with that type of pattern in construction grade lumber in the States known as SPF, spruce, pine, fir. As has been said, it's the pith of the tree, you can see that from its location on the boards when it happens. And it is weak so I wouldn't use it for anything that needed strength, though good for a decorative box lid if you make small boxes, probably with some dyed epoxy.
Watched your horrific video on the bunk bed. I had a thought perhaps you could drill through along the support line and insert and glue som dowels in? Just a thought
That red part is the pith, centre section of the growing tree and the weakest after the leaves. not surprised to see it tbh. sometimes its used in expensive furniture because the wood around it looks so nice. Glad to know no harm came to your little one mate. Loving the podcast by the way...My newest favourite channel!!! May get some stickers soon!!!
That's abysmal Andy, glad your daughter is OK. That 'rot' as others have said is pith. I understand it to be bark trapped as the tree has grown. Interesting video.
Tatty bye - I haven't heard that expression for years! Tat is tat and there's lots of it about. Problem is you don't know until something like this happens. As far as "She was only sitting ..." that's irrelevant. Bunk beds are made for kids. Kids bounce on beds and beds should be designed and built with that in mind. I used to yell at my kids for bouncing on their beds; knowing full well I did the same at their age. Great video, thanks!
Weak white soft wood is also part of the problem. Based on the thickness of the growth rings (best guess: 10-12 mm or 3/8-1/2 in), the wood grew really, really fast. For softwoods, this makes extraordinarily weak lumber. The inherent weakness of the lumber, coupled with the shoddy construction methods, was an accident, not only waiting to happen, but did happen.
Thats the pith or centre of a spruce timber. if you look at the grain it shows that its a really fast grown timber which as a result is really soft and crappy for anything load bearing. the warmer the climate the faster spruce will grow and as a result is really popular commercial timber.... its cheap!
Hi Andy, I am glad that your little girl is OK, I was surprised that you went down this route instead of building one for her, but as you said it should have lasted a lot longer and even when it failed it should not have down so in a manner that made it a health problem. The slat that held the weight of the person should have been one continuous length and should have been glued and screwed as well as put in a dado, the width of the slat is not good enough and should have been thicker.
James Rodgers, not Andy's fault but the fault of the public in general, you and me included. My wife and I are now at the point where we have acquired quality furniture, but when we were young and had young children we were influenced by the price when buying furniture. We didn't buy 'good' furniture until our two children moved out, but this is when we found we had more disposable income. Additionally furniture, like a lot of other thing in life, has become an accessory to be changed when the mood takes you. To this end people don't want to spend $$$ on quality that will last them their lifetime and then be passed onto their children.
Glad you daughter was ok. Even if she was too big for that bed (my 10yo girl is tall), it still should not have failed like that. How many parents sit on the side of the bed with their kids to have a chat? Had that failed on the top bunk, with someone in the bottom, that would have been extra scary.
That bed is sold by many companies under many different names. Both as a single bed or as a bunk bed. I had a single version of the same bed from Argos and the slat support broke, just snapped, all the slats fell through, ripped half of the inside of the bedframe off with it. The bed was only 8mths old. Argos wouldn't accept it back as i no longer had the receipt. Wouldn't send replacement parts either. Awful x
I found this video because a bed that I bought that looks similar to this, go figure, broke exactly the same way when I was putting sheets on the mattress hours after assembling. HOURS! Wish I had found this video before. Luckily, it was me on the bed and not my 5 year old.
That seems to be a bog-standard way these are made. I have a double bed in my own bedroom which I am sorry to say is made like this. I now buy only metal beds, these seem much stronger and cost the same. Mine have round steampunk-style ends which screw into square side tubes with threaded inserts which are welded, the only weakish points are in the middle, since two tubes must be joined together to make up the whole length, but this is done ok using welded threaded bushes, and legs directly under the join. It certainly ain't toolmaking, but it seems sound enough. Getting the double kit up the space-saver "Stairway To Heaven" was fun...
I had a bed from a *high end* store also fail in the side rail on night at story time. In my case it was a feather joint on the wood that gave. All non woodworkers are at a disadvantage IMO.
That's why I've always made my own. All the box shifter's furniture is made from the cheap crap leftovers from the timber producers. Granted, if I was making bunks for sale they would have to be £1K+ but the first one I made 30 odd years ago has been used and abused by my kids and now getting the same treatment by my grand kids. They should all have a sign above the door "Caveat emptor!"
Andy, you're not a scaremonger. Health & Safety [yeah we know] makes it clear, if you spot a danger, you become part liable if you do nothing about it - so fair play for speaking up. Secondly i will dare to say that [ no blame can be attatched to the children] kids don't approach things with the same understanding as adults and they trust things to 'behave' as they'd expect, so, if a flawed product meets an average child, it can only end as you've demonstrated. Seems like safety regulations aren't 'all that' after all - no Kitemark here I take it?
Apparently manufactured to British Standards. All new beds have to bed made to BS EN something or other. Got Trading Standards on the case - we'll see what happens.
I have just built a loft bed . i used 2x6 pine lagged to studs with construction screws. the slat bearers are 2x4's glued and screwed to the 2x6 frame . The slats ara ix4 pine screwed at each end . My daughter and i both swung on it about 350 lbs and it did not move . I WOULD NEVER TRUST THE LIFE OF MY GRAND KIDS TO SOME CHEAP CHINESE GARBAGE AND NOR SHOULD ANYONE ELSE .
No, dad, i was just sitting on it and it broke.............."Dad whose daughter has him wrapped around his little finger says. " Ok honey must be the bed. LOL LOL LOL .
That's one the advantages of buying from a shop you can check the quality of the work, on line its a completely different matter,difficult to send back if not happy.Tatty bye or in the case of your bed bye tatty.
Thanks for sharing. Good to know. So glad your daughter wasn’t hurt. We have a couple of similar kids beds. First one had similar issues with the slat rails being loose. I fixed that one up and made sure I adapted the second before use. The beds are fairly standard design which is fairly ok - just let down by the cheap materials, corner cutting and poor execution of the manufacturing process. Can’t believe those side boards weren’t one piece. Look forward to your fix tips.
I think it was 99% due to the rot.That said the construction is really hokey.As you said, glue job crap. Nails were not even in the middle. If they used pieces for the slat supports but, pre drilled and screwed - using four screws - I think it would have been ok.Does shine a light on...You get what you pay for though. At least your daughter is ok. Next one may not be so lucky. Thanks for highlighting it
Flat pack furniture as been around for a while ,i use to work for a funiture company here in the 80s ,yours is not the first to have that happen ,nore will it be the last ,they go by numbers ,i think the only thing i have ever heard of being recalled was baby cribs after a major lawsuit in the USA,cheap spelled any orther way is still cheap ,most people who buy it ,when it breaks the toss it in the trash thinking ,oh the kids where too ruff on it ,make her a nice bed out of good cuts of wood that will last her life time Mr Mac ,with drawers on the bottom for her stuff ,and have her and you sign it and write her a little note on it ,and BTW there making them out of mdf now ,whole bedroom sets ,then selling them as solid wood ,lot of junk out there if there looking into it tell them to take it back and refund your money so you dont have to seek legal council ,and your right about the building of it just remenber ,if one goes they all could go at one time or another
Hi Andy, sadly this is what you have to expect from the imported furniture that you can buy in the UK from the large retail outlets or for that online. Everything is driven by price, (not that i am insinuating that you did not pay a high price for the item). This item was almost certainly imported into the UK and should have passed certain standards as stipulated by the EU, I can only assume they failed in their checks or the checks were not fit for purpose. The construction is probably fairly standard these days with K/D fittings and dowels or domino's. I have used both but generally it was because it was being done for a price, (not on a bed I hasten to add), you can't really beat the old way of a mortice and tenon. I think all your comments about how it was constructed are valid, plus the size of material which looked rather small didn't help either. I have made dozens of beds over the last 40 years or so including 4 poster reproduction ones, not cheap granted but they were not built to last 20 or 30 years but a lifetime and beyond. There is a large department store in the Uk that says no veneer in here, they fail to add that the legs of their table are 5 or 6 bits glued together and the tops are made up of about 20 bits glued up together to make a 30cm wide top. They are all made outside the UK somewhere where labour is cheap and they can afford to spend the time using up all the small pieces. Hopefully youtuber's will help educate the population as to what is quality and whats not.
Actually mass produced furniture is designed to last 3-5 years because the recommended life of the mattresses of that bed is 4 years they make the future with the knowledge that the hardware they use will start to fail after 3 years most people through in an extra screw here and there or some glue on a joint but they rarely last more that 5 years
I bought a very similar design of adult bed from a charity shop (sold as new, packaged, self-assembly stock) and one of the beds suffered EXACTLY the same side rail failure as you show. I was lucky in that I managed to glue and screw a new supporting piece of wood along the whole length. I repaired the damaged bed and then retro-fitted the same supports to the matching bed and have never had a repeat. Everything was glued, clamped and then screwed. There was no trace of rot on mine. I have considered, but have so far NOT fitted, a mattress-length piece of thin plywood under the mattress to further spread the local load from one cross-member to several. Barry
Stunning video. Thanks for publishing. Luckily nothing severe happened to your daughter. But I can image how she was in shock after that. Quality and low prices are not really friends. An average Joe has no idea what he should control before putting the bed together (if it was flat packed) or at a completed bed in a show room. I'm looking forward to part 2 and I hope the company which made the bed realizes what they have been doing (wrong) Penny wise, pound foolish.
The bit you mentioned was rot is in fact the pith (the centre of the tree (as other have mentioned)). The failure looks like a slope of grain failure in the timber rather than anything to do with the pith itself - just coincidence.
These types of beds are not designed to last. They have a maximum expected user life of 5 years. It's not just this design of bed but all low end fernatur sold through store like Argos , Ikea. These types of beds also have a weight limit that may be hard to I'm posible to find with no safty margin . So weight of child + momentum = catastrophic failer Por design, shoddy workmanship land low auolity materials = short service life
Wayfair, home of shoddy furniture. I have assembled a lot of wayfair furniture in my life, and I had problems with all of them. Absolutely bottom quality.
Simple furniture anymore is ALL JUNK!! I simply stopped buying a lot of it in fact about twenty five years ago!!!! With simple hand tools (including cheap power tools, like a circular saw, jig/ sabre saw, and a cordless drill) you can build wonderful furniture that is far stronger and vastly superior!! In fact my computer desk I sit at every day, people freak out when they ask me "Where did you buy that?" and I tell them "Home Depot as a couple of sheets of plywood"!! They just can't imagine what can be done with basic tools and everybody thinks I paid "top dollar" for my desk, book cases, and other stands in my home, that "look expensive" was actually just sanded plywood from Home Depot or Lowe's!! Ultimately it isn't that hard to build the items I built and they are much, much stronger than the cheap crap that they sell in stores anymore.....and usually cheaper too!!!!
That is shocking. It is simply constructed using scrap wood from somewhere or another. That dado/groove is nothing more than a token gesture or to let the nails enter the wood a little deeper. Terrible.
Is what you think as rot, not the centre pith of the tree? All the faults you highlight are classic, built to maximize profits crap and we're guilty of buying it as we think it's good value. But no excuse for the support rail to be in short lengths. It's no as if it was to save space for packing reasons as it would only be the same length of the bed sides anyway. Your lassie must have got a right fleg. Hope she's ok.
Think it is the centre pith but it's still very soft with little round holes in so not sure what's going on there. She got a shock but she's fine - think she was more worried that it was her fault, which it wasn't obviously. 👍😀
@@johnmackay7789 , yes every day, as do I. In this instant I have a very unfair advantage, msc forestry, but the teacher of this bit of knowledge was a gnarled chap that left school at 13, had very few of his own teeth and was one of the wisest codgers I ever met.
YOU SHOULD SUE! Oh wait... you're not an idiot LOL It really stinks that everything is such garbage these days. Half the stuff I buy has to be fixed before it is even used. All about what I call the "Walmart mentality" today - give it to me cheap and shoddy ASAP. I don't blame the manufacturers, is just what the general pubic wants. Sigh.
Stayed in a hotel last year for a wedding which had a near identical bunk bed and had already half failed in the same way on the *top* bunk and we could see it was about to go as eldest climbed up. No other rooms available, weekend so no handyman available, blah blah blah.
As luck would have it, I had a couple of screws, mini tool kit, and some strips of timber in the boot so I set about making a bodge repair job to last the weekend. Trickiest bit was sawing using my tiny multi tool saw but it did the job and actually the repair would probably last longer than the original construction did! Was less hassle than any of the other options!
Gotta say, I have a swiss champ. many a time the saw on that saved a trip to the van. 6x1 floor board takes about a minute.
Hi Andy it's not rot on your side rails it's the pith of the tree the dead centre of the tree . Best regards neil. Joiner 33 years in the trade
Might be a bark inclusion...
The pith of a tree should never be used for any kind of construction ,it is the weakest part of the tree ,of course the Chinese do not care how many kids they kill.
I have a basic Ikea pine bed and I couldn’t believe the strength built into it! I do think while Ikea in particular may make furniture out of basic and cheaper materials their engineering and quality control is very good.
Yup - I generally can't fault IKEA. It is what it is and never had a dangerous product from them 👍
could you please advise how the top bunk connects to the bottom bunk? I have a very similar bed I bought cheap and we can't fit the top to the bottom! does it use dowells? please assist dude!
Thank you very much for this video. I have bought two years ago a bunker bed with a slide for my children. I already had removed the slide because it was very poorly fixed to the bed. Now I checked the system used to hold the mattress it is exactly the same of your daughter.
The dark streak looks more like the pith of the tree as opposed to rot. its often soft and a bit pulpy.
Good video. Points out so much of what is wrong with cheap furniture. A whole bunch of compromises to keep the materials cost down. Most of it is just trash.
I built a bunk bed nearly 40 years ago out of similar "quality" lumber the difference is that I understood that lumber like that was of questionable strength so I up-sized all the pieces. Essentially "2x6" rails fastened to "4x4" notched posts held together with 8mm bolts. Still in use today and still solid.
More recently I built a bed like this that was to be painted. Needed is to be a little more petite than my previous one. Made the ends of pine but realized pine in those dimensions pine was too variable in strength for the rails, so made the rails from hardwood using steel brackets at the corners. I suspect it will hold up.
As for the brown "rot" shown in your video, I don't know what it is exactly, but I've seen similar discoloration in softwoods here in North America. I think it's more a defect rather than rot. I don't know if I blame the bed manufacturer because it can be unseen in some pieces, BUT you can blame them for using wood of such questionable strength for such an important load bearing member.
Hi Andy I ran into this problem several times in the last few years before I retired, I fixed it by making new rails for the bed out of a hard wood or a good quality plywood. It was a expensive repair but the store I was doing the work for was paying it, what always troubled me was the store continued to purchase the same bed set from the same supplier for several years with out making them correct the defective way they were building the bed. I guess they thought it was cheeper to repair a few under warranty then to spend a few extra dollars and making it correctly.
Very interesting! Were many returned?
Quite a few were returned but they only had a one year warranty, so after that I think a lot ended up in the garbage dump , no wonder the store went under.
In the States we have a technical name for furniture like that we refer to it as garbage. My sons bed had the same exact thing happen to it and he did get cut happy to hear your daughter escaped that fait. Thank you for taking the time to call out these so called furniture makers correction garbage makers.
Not me having that exact bed 💀
looking at it, Id put my money on the pith being the cause of the failure...
Using short pieces is not the problem, when solid wood is used in small cross section deformations appears, specially in fast growing wood, i don’t know which specie is but looking at the separation between the growing rings and the mass presence of knots, definitely is a fast growing specie usually used for particle board, mdf or competitive plywood.
I mention that short pieces in that positions is not a problem if they’ve designed to support and transmit the weight of the user to the main Beam with a trustworthy joint, here is the first problem a bad designed joint.
Not enough glue and an inadequate method to maintain the faces close together while that poor amount of glue sets.
I’m referred not to the nails but to the flatness of the pieces, the short ones are made this way to “eliminate” waviness as i said before, but the long beams are not flat enough to match the short ones.
Using pressure to guarantee face matching while the glue sets was not well designed, some genius think that using nails was enough like you do when fixing decorative moldings.
The channel they made is only to facilitate fast assembly but the gap between pieces remains as you can see the original glue line not disturbed.
I think that a hotmelt glue is the solution for this assembly in mass production like edge banding that allows 30 or more m/min today.
The main beam made with two long strips is not a problem, glues today are as strong as you need like good metal weld and you can select the correct glue with the correct assembly to achieve the same strength or more than the material you use. Here we can see the producer meets the goal and is because the use some kind of pressing methodology that the pieces are held together during the glue sets, this is made for many years pushing one side glued long wood strips crosswise between two heated plates 5 or more meter long in the flow direction.
The beam problem in you case is the incorrect use of fast growing wood species for structural assembly, fast growing wood strips has to be chopped to eliminate knots and other defects, then the head and tail is finger jointed to obtain a long piece of good wood and then these strips are glued sidewise to obtain a structural element for trustworthy use.
The dowels without glue is not a problem, the central conector make the glue function, keeping the structural pieces together to allow the dowels resist the shearing force in that joint.
In mass production is important a good engineering like Ikea have and this year have received 7 Red Dot Awards. Red Dot Award is an internationally organised competition which reviews the best products of the year.
Saludos
Gerardo
I have a "solid oak" bed that I bought a number of years ago, that broke recently. Although the head board and foot board are solid oak (although glued smaller pieces), believe it or not, the rails connecting the head and foot board are .... wait for it .... oak veneered MDF. Yep. WTF!? ... the rails are the weakest point in the whole frame and the they used MDF? it's clearly designed to fail.
No, just designed to look good so you buy it while being as cheap as possible to build. Most companies put no thought at all into the strength of the finished item.
You're lucky the hotel didn't try to charge you for damages when in all reality they should have been paying you to fix their issue and refunding you for part of your stay due to the bed being broken
Hi Andy.
Bloody good call. I've checked by youngest sons bed and even though the slat support is glued and screwed and one part. My other concern is that the side rail is also laminated like your example. Using a pull bolt on the side rail on the glue line is also a concern as the majority of the point load is on the glue line of the lamination. There is no reason why this glue line should fail unless the assembler of the bed goes crazy on the tightening process. However shouldn't there be a better method of attachment of the rails so the securing bolt fails before the wood is potentially over stressed during assembly instead? I've seen a better version of the "bolt and round nut in a hole" method which acts like a claw covering the full width of the side rail. Slat supports made of 20mm Plywood would also add support to the rails too.
My lads have a bleeding disorder so those nails could be worse than for the average kid.
Again good call and I'll be sharing this video with my friends and local school/nursery.
Giles.
Although my double bed looks a lot different, it is constructed in almost exactly the same way. The only differences are that the slat supports are screwed on and that there is no housing/rebate at all.
It also failed in a very similar way when I sat on it to put my socks on one morning. In my case the main side rail failed because there was a large knot occupying a large proportion of the width of the rail. One of the screws that hold the slat supports also passed through this area of the rail next to the knot, the split passed through that point.
I bought some new relatively knot-free wood and replaced the rail. I used the same construction but planed the parts smooth where they fit together and made sure there was a good glue joint for the slat support.
what peas me of is knots in lats small 1s are ok but but any bigger than 1/2 inch leaves a week spot on your bed
The knots are terrible 👍
Is that rot the pith?
Nails for positioning. Screws for strength.
Did you find the made in China sticker anywhere?
Shocking mate,hope your daughters ok.I put together a bed simular a few years back ,I will have to check next week. Thanks for the heads up.
I bought bunk beds like this for my grandkids in 2012..They are only used when they stay at mine...must admit they have been good...My youngest grandson needs a new bed and as these are still good I said she could have the bunk beds ...I'm worried now that if we take them apart they might become unstable...
Good informative video, I had a similar problem with a bed from a well known Department Store chain, the problem was with the wooden slats which had become brittle due to forced kiln drying of the wood, the bed was replaced free of charge. The damage to your wood looks like termite damage.
Definitely not termites. Termites leave small random winding tunnels.
I remember having a divan bed not too many years ago that the cat, as cats do, had clawed the cover material off the corner and before I chopped it up I noticed it had been made of old chipboard kitchen units and other bits of scrap. We're just been taken for a ride with cheap furniture.
That's a familiar looking bunk bed. What does the endgrain look like on that busted rail?
Should be able to see it a bit more clearly on part 2. 👍
I just had this happen with my bunk beds. Same issue as yours.
i had a panic attak for a min because my bed kinda looked like that tell me said the pillers so i think im ok?
And to think that we all automatically trust companies when buying things like these. Thanks for sharing and going through this. Looking forward to part 2!
What I took away from your 15 minute long video? Make sure to clamp glued objects together for proper bonding.
Thank you very much 😊
I am looking forward to your part 2 of this series.
A very interesting video. I'm pleased to hear that your daughter wasn't seriously hurt and that the retailer is investigating the issue.
I bought an Ikea bed last year with a pine frame. It's all made quite efficiently with ex. 3x1in timber. People will occasionally comment on my assembly video, asking whether it's strong enough! It's been fine so far. They've stapled two pieces of 3x1in face to face, overlapping in a way that creates a rebate for the bed slats... If that makes sense? It's almost like the tiny batten on your rails but deeper and better able to take a load.
I am a little bit concerned by the presence of pith and the fact that it only appears to be stapled together with no glue. I've thought about adding a load of screws (I don't think they're renown for shear strength) but dowels, glued in place, could be a better option.
Thanks for the video. I'm off to take a look at Part 2.
If you ask me, it looks like pith, the heart of the tree. They've used the stuff we turn into pallet board.
Hi Andy, what's that white cyclinder thing hanging from the ceiling? Is it a heater or dust extractor of some kind?
Air cleaner 👍
We have a Benson for Beds version of that style of bunk bed and as soon as I saw the captive nut thing you can tell its a bean counters love affiar. As it is a press mild steel plate that has kind of the trapped to form a crude thread. Luckily for us Bensons for Beds didn't go down the super cheap and nasty route as the captive nuts are soild steel and uses really good quality materials.
We did have a Double bed that was made in the same way as your bunk beds.
Those cheap and nasty capitve nuts can easily pull the wood out from where they have recessed in to allow you to bolt the bed frame together. It was second hand as we need to a bed and fast as we had just moved house and needed a bed for guests, The wife bought if off Facebook's market place. I had to repair the bed to start with, and in the end it's slowly being burnt in the log burner as kindling as my Eldest finished it off by jumping on it and splitting several slats and one of the rails and the snapping the centre support. The Bed ends have been let in the back garden for about four moths and they delaminated within weeks of being put out there as I have no room to store them in the workshop.
Next Time we need new beds I will be making them myself, regardsless of how long it takes to make them.
Shocker! Glad your daughter wasn't hurt. You shouldn't have to be a professional joiner to make a piece of flatpack furniture safe for use!!
Hi Andy, I have had wood with that type of pattern in construction grade lumber in the States known as SPF, spruce, pine, fir. As has been said, it's the pith of the tree, you can see that from its location on the boards when it happens. And it is weak so I wouldn't use it for anything that needed strength, though good for a decorative box lid if you make small boxes, probably with some dyed epoxy.
Watched your horrific video on the bunk bed. I had a thought perhaps you could drill through along the support line and insert and glue som dowels in? Just a thought
That red part is the pith, centre section of the growing tree and the weakest after the leaves. not surprised to see it tbh. sometimes its used in expensive furniture because the wood around it looks so nice. Glad to know no harm came to your little one mate. Loving the podcast by the way...My newest favourite channel!!! May get some stickers soon!!!
Cheers Jamie! 👊
That's abysmal Andy, glad your daughter is OK. That 'rot' as others have said is pith. I understand it to be bark trapped as the tree has grown. Interesting video.
See closeup pics on my Insta - defo looks more than just dodgy pith. 👍
Tatty bye - I haven't heard that expression for years! Tat is tat and there's lots of it about. Problem is you don't know until something like this happens. As far as "She was only sitting ..." that's irrelevant. Bunk beds are made for kids. Kids bounce on beds and beds should be designed and built with that in mind. I used to yell at my kids for bouncing on their beds; knowing full well I did the same at their age. Great video, thanks!
Weak white soft wood is also part of the problem. Based on the thickness of the growth rings (best guess: 10-12 mm or 3/8-1/2 in), the wood grew really, really fast. For softwoods, this makes extraordinarily weak lumber. The inherent weakness of the lumber, coupled with the shoddy construction methods, was an accident, not only waiting to happen, but did happen.
Thats the pith or centre of a spruce timber. if you look at the grain it shows that its a really fast grown timber which as a result is really soft and crappy for anything load bearing. the warmer the climate the faster spruce will grow and as a result is really popular commercial timber.... its cheap!
Hi Andy, I am glad that your little girl is OK, I was surprised that you went down this route instead of building one for her, but as you said it should have lasted a lot longer and even when it failed it should not have down so in a manner that made it a health problem. The slat that held the weight of the person should have been one continuous length and should have been glued and screwed as well as put in a dado, the width of the slat is not good enough and should have been thicker.
Yup - not enough hours John.
Caused by the general public, wanting the cheapest products, from food upwards.
So it was Andy's fault?
James Rodgers, not Andy's fault but the fault of the public in general, you and me included. My wife and I are now at the point where we have acquired quality furniture, but when we were young and had young children we were influenced by the price when buying furniture. We didn't buy 'good' furniture until our two children moved out, but this is when we found we had more disposable income. Additionally furniture, like a lot of other thing in life, has become an accessory to be changed when the mood takes you. To this end people don't want to spend $$$ on quality that will last them their lifetime and then be passed onto their children.
@@andrew5792 Sadly so true, style over substance - the capitalist way
@@negotiableaffections The corporatist, statist, globalist way. Not the same thing. Marxists and tycoons both destroy the little guy.
Well duh a lot of people can't actually afford higher quality products
I have just bought this bed from amazon, took me ages to put up, I'm very scared now
Good rants are entertaining and interesting :) keep it up!
Glad you daughter was ok. Even if she was too big for that bed (my 10yo girl is tall), it still should not have failed like that. How many parents sit on the side of the bed with their kids to have a chat?
Had that failed on the top bunk, with someone in the bottom, that would have been extra scary.
Yup - that's how the first one failed. Sitting on the side of the bed for story time and went right through it. Slat supports just fell off. 🤔👍
That bed is sold by many companies under many different names. Both as a single bed or as a bunk bed. I had a single version of the same bed from Argos and the slat support broke, just snapped, all the slats fell through, ripped half of the inside of the bedframe off with it. The bed was only 8mths old. Argos wouldn't accept it back as i no longer had the receipt. Wouldn't send replacement parts either. Awful x
I found this video because a bed that I bought that looks similar to this, go figure, broke exactly the same way when I was putting sheets on the mattress hours after assembling. HOURS! Wish I had found this video before.
Luckily, it was me on the bed and not my 5 year old.
Report it to Trading Standards if you're in the UK - hope you're OK! 👍
That seems to be a bog-standard way these are made. I have a double bed in my own bedroom which I am sorry to say is made like this. I now buy only metal beds, these seem much stronger and cost the same. Mine have round steampunk-style ends which screw into square side tubes with threaded inserts which are welded, the only weakish points are in the middle, since two tubes must be joined together to make up the whole length, but this is done ok using welded threaded bushes, and legs directly under the join. It certainly ain't toolmaking, but it seems sound enough.
Getting the double kit up the space-saver "Stairway To Heaven" was fun...
I had a bed from a *high end* store also fail in the side rail on night at story time. In my case it was a feather joint on the wood that gave. All non woodworkers are at a disadvantage IMO.
That's why I've always made my own. All the box shifter's furniture is made from the cheap crap leftovers from the timber producers. Granted, if I was making bunks for sale they would have to be £1K+ but the first one I made 30 odd years ago has been used and abused by my kids and now getting the same treatment by my grand kids. They should all have a sign above the door "Caveat emptor!"
"Marrow", the core of the pine as it grows in the young phase, think of elderberry to give you an exaggerated idea.
Andy, you're not a scaremonger. Health & Safety [yeah we know] makes it clear, if you spot a danger, you become part liable if you do nothing about it - so fair play for speaking up. Secondly i will dare to say that [ no blame can be attatched to the children] kids don't approach things with the same understanding as adults and they trust things to 'behave' as they'd expect, so, if a flawed product meets an average child, it can only end as you've demonstrated. Seems like safety regulations aren't 'all that' after all - no Kitemark here I take it?
Apparently manufactured to British Standards. All new beds have to bed made to BS EN something or other. Got Trading Standards on the case - we'll see what happens.
I have just built a loft bed . i used 2x6 pine lagged to studs with construction screws. the slat bearers are 2x4's glued and screwed to the 2x6 frame . The slats ara ix4 pine screwed at each end . My daughter and i both swung on it about 350 lbs and it did not move . I WOULD NEVER TRUST THE LIFE OF MY GRAND KIDS TO SOME CHEAP CHINESE GARBAGE AND NOR SHOULD ANYONE ELSE .
Made in a sweat-shop for a fiver,sold here for hundreds! Hope your daughter is ok Andy!😠😠😠😠😠😠😠😠😠
Watches video then goes straight upstairs to look at kids beds . Anyone else do that ?
kayaking northeast Just about to. Watching part 2 first. Although the bunk beds we have are from Ikea and they seem very stable so far.
No, dad, i was just sitting on it and it broke.............."Dad whose daughter has him wrapped around his little finger says. " Ok honey must be the bed. LOL LOL LOL .
Scary to think what could have happened 😳
That's one the advantages of buying from a shop you can check the quality of the work, on line its a completely different matter,difficult to send back if not happy.Tatty bye or in the case of your bed bye tatty.
Surely it must cost more to use smaller sections of wood for the support rails as they have to be cut to length and each cut has a cost.
They'll probably be scraps from other furniture - they're not even cut to the right length. 👍
Thanks for sharing. Good to know. So glad your daughter wasn’t hurt. We have a couple of similar kids beds. First one had similar issues with the slat rails being loose. I fixed that one up and made sure I adapted the second before use. The beds are fairly standard design which is fairly ok - just let down by the cheap materials, corner cutting and poor execution of the manufacturing process. Can’t believe those side boards weren’t one piece. Look forward to your fix tips.
I think it was 99% due to the rot.That said the construction is really hokey.As you said, glue job crap. Nails were not even in the middle. If they used pieces for the slat supports but, pre drilled and screwed - using four screws - I think it would have been ok.Does shine a light on...You get what you pay for though. At least your daughter is ok. Next one may not be so lucky. Thanks for highlighting it
Convert it into British Thermal Units..
Flat pack furniture as been around for a while ,i use to work for a funiture company here in the 80s ,yours is not the first to have that happen ,nore will it be the last ,they go by numbers ,i think the only thing i have ever heard of being recalled was baby cribs after a major lawsuit in the USA,cheap spelled any orther way is still cheap ,most people who buy it ,when it breaks the toss it in the trash thinking ,oh the kids where too ruff on it ,make her a nice bed out of good cuts of wood that will last her life time Mr Mac ,with drawers on the bottom for her stuff ,and have her and you sign it and write her a little note on it ,and BTW there making them out of mdf now ,whole bedroom sets ,then selling them as solid wood ,lot of junk out there if there looking into it tell them to take it back and refund your money so you dont have to seek legal council ,and your right about the building of it just remenber ,if one goes they all could go at one time or another
Hi Andy, sadly this is what you have to expect from the imported furniture that you can buy in the UK from the large retail outlets or for that online. Everything is driven by price, (not that i am insinuating that you did not pay a high price for the item). This item was almost certainly imported into the UK and should have passed certain standards as stipulated by the EU, I can only assume they failed in their checks or the checks were not fit for purpose. The construction is probably fairly standard these days with K/D fittings and dowels or domino's. I have used both but generally it was because it was being done for a price, (not on a bed I hasten to add), you can't really beat the old way of a mortice and tenon.
I think all your comments about how it was constructed are valid, plus the size of material which looked rather small didn't help either. I have made dozens of beds over the last 40 years or so including 4 poster reproduction ones, not cheap granted but they were not built to last 20 or 30 years but a lifetime and beyond.
There is a large department store in the Uk that says no veneer in here, they fail to add that the legs of their table are 5 or 6 bits glued together and the tops are made up of about 20 bits glued up together to make a 30cm wide top. They are all made outside the UK somewhere where labour is cheap and they can afford to spend the time using up all the small pieces.
Hopefully youtuber's will help educate the population as to what is quality and whats not.
Yup - made to British Standards apparently! 😂👍
My daughter had one for her children and the support broke in half. Don't know who it was manufactured by.
Actually mass produced furniture is designed to last 3-5 years because the recommended life of the mattresses of that bed is 4 years they make the future with the knowledge that the hardware they use will start to fail after 3 years most people through in an extra screw here and there or some glue on a joint but they rarely last more that 5 years
Didn't come with a mattress - I think very little design had gone on here 😀
I bought a very similar design of adult bed from a charity shop (sold as new, packaged, self-assembly stock) and one of the beds suffered EXACTLY the same side rail failure as you show.
I was lucky in that I managed to glue and screw a new supporting piece of wood along the whole length. I repaired the damaged bed and then retro-fitted the same supports to the matching bed and have never had a repeat. Everything was glued, clamped and then screwed. There was no trace of rot on mine.
I have considered, but have so far NOT fitted, a mattress-length piece of thin plywood under the mattress to further spread the local load from one cross-member to several.
Barry
bark beetle track in the wood
Love from india buddy
Stunning video. Thanks for publishing. Luckily nothing severe happened to your daughter. But I can image how she was in shock after that. Quality and low prices are not really friends. An average Joe has no idea what he should control before putting the bed together (if it was flat packed) or at a completed bed in a show room.
I'm looking forward to part 2 and I hope the company which made the bed realizes what they have been doing (wrong) Penny wise, pound foolish.
The bit you mentioned was rot is in fact the pith (the centre of the tree (as other have mentioned)). The failure looks like a slope of grain failure in the timber rather than anything to do with the pith itself - just coincidence.
Possibly - it broke right on the dowel hole and the pith mind and followed the pith line. 👍
These types of beds are not designed to last. They have a maximum expected user life of 5 years. It's not just this design of bed but all low end fernatur sold through store like Argos , Ikea. These types of beds also have a weight limit that may be hard to I'm posible to find with no safty margin . So weight of child + momentum = catastrophic failer
Por design, shoddy workmanship land low auolity materials = short service life
Yup - you'd never see something like this out of IKEA. Argos probably. 👍😀
Oh wow, that is so bad!!!! Absolutely shocking assembly and poor choice of materials. Can’t quite believe it!
It's not rot, it's the pith of the tree with the very first branches branching of.
It's defo the pith but it's also very soft - much softer than normal pith. 👍
@@GosforthHandyman Then it fits well with the overal quality of the bed 😁
Wayfair, home of shoddy furniture. I have assembled a lot of wayfair furniture in my life, and I had problems with all of them. Absolutely bottom quality.
lighter fluid seems to be the only safe way to FIX that turd.
Ok
Simple furniture anymore is ALL JUNK!! I simply stopped buying a lot of it in fact about twenty five years ago!!!! With simple hand tools (including cheap power tools, like a circular saw, jig/ sabre saw, and a cordless drill) you can build wonderful furniture that is far stronger and vastly superior!! In fact my computer desk I sit at every day, people freak out when they ask me "Where did you buy that?" and I tell them "Home Depot as a couple of sheets of plywood"!! They just can't imagine what can be done with basic tools and everybody thinks I paid "top dollar" for my desk, book cases, and other stands in my home, that "look expensive" was actually just sanded plywood from Home Depot or Lowe's!! Ultimately it isn't that hard to build the items I built and they are much, much stronger than the cheap crap that they sell in stores anymore.....and usually cheaper too!!!!
You should watch the video he mentioned near the start, about buying vs building. TIME is the biggest issue.
اتمنى ان يكون كل النجارين صدقين
That is shocking. It is simply constructed using scrap wood from somewhere or another. That dado/groove is nothing more than a token gesture or to let the nails enter the wood a little deeper. Terrible.
Yup - I'm wondering if the dado is just to remove paint prior to gluing?
@@GosforthHandyman Certainly makes sense, it doesn't really serve any other purpose, virtually no support.
Is what you think as rot, not the centre pith of the tree?
All the faults you highlight are classic, built to maximize profits crap and we're guilty of buying it as we think it's good value. But no excuse for the support rail to be in short lengths. It's no as if it was to save space for packing reasons as it would only be the same length of the bed sides anyway. Your lassie must have got a right fleg. Hope she's ok.
Think it is the centre pith but it's still very soft with little round holes in so not sure what's going on there. She got a shock but she's fine - think she was more worried that it was her fault, which it wasn't obviously. 👍😀
Round little holes are the scars of the needles as they grow directly on the 'trunk' in this phase. Walk around among young pine trees and look. 😎
@@jan-reiniervoute6701 Never thought of that. Every day is a school day
@@johnmackay7789 , yes every day, as do I. In this instant I have a very unfair advantage, msc forestry, but the teacher of this bit of knowledge was a gnarled chap that left school at 13, had very few of his own teeth and was one of the wisest codgers I ever met.
@@jan-reiniervoute6701 sounds like my mate Bert. 🤣
Bunk beds are not safe in general and should be banned. One fall off the top bump, and you're burying your children
Red rot.
Profit over safety....it's happening everywhere......
why didn't you build a solid bed on your own for your baby girl in the first place.
Because I run a joinery business and my weekends are for family time, not more joinery.
Wayfair products are very poor quality. Cheapest materials put together with no idea. Kind of Primark of house products. I won’t buy from them anymore
Wayfair looks good quality and charges high end prices but it’s cheaply made an no better than ikea, awful quality
IKEA is WAY better quality than this. 👍
YOU SHOULD SUE! Oh wait... you're not an idiot LOL
It really stinks that everything is such garbage these days. Half the stuff I buy has to be fixed before it is even used.
All about what I call the "Walmart mentality" today - give it to me cheap and shoddy ASAP. I don't blame the manufacturers, is just what the general pubic wants. Sigh.