Volunteers to Build Beds for St. Thomas Aquinas Seminary

[Akavit]

Marc Adams School near Indianapolis is hosting another charity event for the seminary June 3-7, 2024.  It is not necessary to be an advanced furniture-maker to participate.  The staff knows how to manage volunteers and instruct people so they can assist in the project.  Even unskilled volunteers could help move lumber and parts around and free up others to spend more time running machinery.

Check out the school's web page for more information on the class.  Registration for newcomers starts December 1st.  Not sure if there will be any slots open by then (students get first dibs on signup) but if anyone is interested, check back in a couple weeks.

Event Description

[Greg]

You pay 450 dollars and donate your time as well to build beds in a factory type process?

Interesting concept.

I am no expert on beds but aren't the wooden slats there for a reason, like the ability of the mattress to get airflow and thus not get mould underneath.

Solid  platform for a bed does not seem like the best idea.

[Acolyte]

You pay 450 dollars and donate your time as well to build beds in a factory type process?

Interesting concept.

I am no expert on beds but aren't the wooden slats there for a reason, like the ability of the mattress to get airflow and thus not get mould underneath.

Solid  platform for a bed does not seem like the best idea.

Just guessing but I think the idea of slats is to facilitate easy assembly of bed frames.

I could be wrong.

[Greg]

Why would attaching 22 slats with 44 or 88 screws (or nails) be easier than attaching a sheet of plywood and using half that number?

Slats serve two purposes.  They allow air circulation under the mattress.

They bend slightly and help distribute the weight of a human as they move on the bed.  With a solid board the mattress will feel harder.

[Heinrich]

Why would attaching 22 slats with 44 or 88 screws (or nails) be easier than attaching a sheet of plywood and using half that number?

Slats serve two purposes.  They allow air circulation under the mattress.

They bend slightly and help distribute the weight of a human as they move on the bed.  With a solid board the mattress will feel harder.

Penance is my guess.

[clau clau]

.

[Greg]

Why would attaching 22 slats with 44 or 88 screws (or nails) be easier than attaching a sheet of plywood and using half that number?

Slats serve two purposes.  They allow air circulation under the mattress.

They bend slightly and help distribute the weight of a human as they move on the bed.  With a solid board the mattress will feel harder.

Penance is my guess.

Then they will need to turn their mattress weekly too, in order to stop mould forming.

[Akavit]

You pay 450 dollars and donate your time as well to build beds in a factory type process?

Interesting concept.

I am no expert on beds but aren't the wooden slats there for a reason, like the ability of the mattress to get airflow and thus not get mould underneath.

Solid  platform for a bed does not seem like the best idea.

It's not really a factory setting.  The school workshop isn't optimized for that type of production.  But the staff will do their best to create some sort of workflow plan so it will feel a lot like production work.  At the pew event some years back, the first day was mostly spent sorting boards and chopping them to approximate length.  Students were divided into crews with each crew assigned to a specific task.  I was one of the board sorters and later moved to a ripping operation on a tablesaw.

Prior to the introduction of mass-produced plywood, slats would have been easier and cheaper.  Now, plywood is more economical in many cases.  But I'd be surprised to see any commercial frame with a plywood base due to the expense of shipping a panel of that size.

I've never built a bed but a solid platform seems to be a common choice with people who design and build their own.  I've also known people who added plywood under their mattresses to provide better support for an old mattress.  I also believe that a Carmelite bed is basically a board with a thin mattress laid over it so there is some precedence for solid platform beds in a religious setting.

In the USA however, a lot of bed frames have neither slats nor plywood because most beds here use disposable box springs under the mattress that get replaced when the mattress is replaced.

I don't know if the bed in that picture is an actual prototype of the bed the seminary wants or if it's a random picture from some other class.

[Greg]

Pretty clever getting the volunteers to pay for their own workshop.

Only in America.  I could not see that working in other parts of the world.

[awkward customer]

It would be easier and probably no more expensive to buy a job lot of cheap pine beds - slatted for air circulation.  Mass produced pine beds are not expensive.

Solid bed bases might be okay for mattresses that are 2 inches think, filled with horsehair and easily turned.

[Akavit]

Like I said, I don't know for sure what design the seminary chose.  But if they really wanted slats, they would get them.  Considering that the moisture content of wood equalizes to the moisture level of the surrounding air, I doubt that slats vs no slats would make a big difference keeping a mattress dry.  It would be an interesting experiment and somebody somewhere has probably conducted one.

Having volunteers pitch in money to buy beds would certainly be easier and possibly cheaper.  But easier and cheaper is not always the goal.

Twenty years ago, one thriving, local parish was run by a priest that was the last hold-out against the most extreme novelties that all other parishes had succumbed to.  Each year he organized a fundraiser that featured a white elephant sale, bake sale, cook-out, kids games and music.  It required a massive amount of volunteer effort and netted around $5,000 in proceeds. He declined to go for the big-ticket raffles that others favored as an easy way to get money.  The parish didn't need the money because it operated with a lean staff, had a large congregation and had land endowments.  He wanted the event that brought people of all ages from the parish (and neighbors) and allowed them to work, eat and play together.

The bishop forced that priest to retire, the new pastor harped on "stewardship", staff was increased, novelties were introduced, people left the parish,finances dried up and the congregation aged. The annual event was replaced with a $100 raffle ticket fundraiser that netted $20,000 or more profit with minimal work. The church was closed anyway for lack of money.

[Severinus]

Pretty clever getting the volunteers to pay for their own workshop.

Only in America.  I could not see that working in other parts of the world.

Normally with a DIY workshop you at least leave with the thing you paid to make.

[Greg]

It would be easier and probably no more expensive to buy a job lot of cheap pine beds - slatted for air circulation.  Mass produced pine beds are not expensive.

Solid bed bases might be okay for mattresses that are 2 inches think, filled with horsehair and easily turned.

I bet right now there are government warehouses full of the extra beds and mattresses bought for Covid patients and never used.  Probably be pleased to get rid of several hundred.

If there is one thing that is very easy to to find on freecycle it is bed.

Getting people to pay and donate their labour to build them is an act of salesmanship that PT Barnum would be proud of.

[Akavit]

Event is over.  27 people ranging from young teenagers to retirees completed almost all of the milling ,joinery and sanding for 120 beds in 4.5 days.  We were roughly 130 mortises and 30 tenons short of the goal of 100% completion.  Brother Mark will complete that and do the stain and topcoat at the seminary's woodshop.  My rough estimate is that we removed 7 months of work off Brother Mark's schedule and he can move onto other projects sooner rather than later.  He was going to do the entire project solo before the school offered to organize the event.

Someone did donate 120 mass-produced pine beds to the seminary 8 years ago.  Those were starting to fall apart.  A former seminarian who was at the event told me the beds had issues with warping boards and a number of slats were breaking (construction grade 1x4's).  They want their furnishings to be functional for 120+ years.  Permanence is a major element for the seminary project so the new beds are made with extra thick oak boards and heavy, cast aluminum bed rail brackets.

In case anyone is curious, the design could easily accommodate slats or plywood.  The seminary is going with plywood.

[Greg]

IKEA metal beds will last 50 years if you assemble them with red coloured thread weld.