Building A Swing Bed For My Wife

Project:
Building a Swing Bed for my wife's Backyard Sun Shade Pergola

Difficulty Level (Easy, Medium, Hard, Insane):
Medium

Process:
This one was actually a bit tricky for two reasons:

1. I wanted the swinging mechanism to be nice, smooth and quiet
2. I wanted to be able to turn the swing bed into a regular width swing

I decided to accomplish #1 by not using chains but to use bearings instead. Except for it took a little "Eigenheering" (as a friend of mine calls it) to get the support brackets just right. I could have just bought the ready-made bearing supports from Princess Auto but I didn't want to spend $120 on that alone so instead I bought 8 bearings for a couple bucks each and another $10 bucks worth of iron. And, now I can support at least 1200 pounds on those supports...

The bed frame was definitely a bit tricky because I'm chopping out a square piece in the middle essentially leaving two corners unsupported. So I had to do some doubling up of the 2x4's to make it strong enough.

The last thing I had to do is fit some cross-braces in the roof beams and cut 4 holes through the shade cloth (after I sewed a circle around the hole to prevent from tearing)

Now it's being used a lot and it definitely scored me some brownie points with my wife!

Videos:

Pictures:

The "Eigenheering" diagram

After all the pieces were cut up

Starting the substrate/framing

The frame taking shape

Adding the arm rest support structure

Placing the back rest boards

Starting on the sitting area

The removable insert with the angle iron slides

Close-up of the center insert sliding mechanism

Almost done

With the center insert removed

Bending and welding the iron support brackets

The four support brackets when the welding was finished

Test install before painting

The support bracket at the back

Done and ready to hang

Placing it in its final position so I could mark out the support beams

Starting on the vertical rods

Welding some washers to the square tubing to make it stronger

All done

Close-up of the supporting square tubing

One of the top support brackets

All the iron work is done

Hanging the parts for painting

The rods after they were painted

All the iron parts painted, dried and ready to install

The top bracket installed (with the neighbor's pool in the background)

Bottom front support with bearing installed

Bottom rear support with bearing installed

Ellie testing it out

Testing with the center insert removed

The girls enjoying "their" new swing

Tools:
Chop saw
Table saw
Drill press
Mig welder
Level
Measuring tape
Pencil
Drill
Nail gun
Jig saw
Angle grinder
Oxy/Acetylene torch
HVLP spray gun
Hand saw
Hammer
Plumb-bob
Wrench

Materials:
10-2x4-8ft
10-1x6-6ft
1-2x6-12ft
8 2" bearings
6ft of 3/16"x 2" flat iron
2ft of 3/8" x 2/8" square iron
24ft of 3/4" x 3/4" square tubing
4ft of 3/4" x 3/4" angle iron
16 metal washers
8 3/8" x 1-1/4" bolts with nylon locking nuts
8 joist hangers
Nails
Screws

Cost:
$135.00

Time:
10hrs

Savings:
$200.00 or more

Conclusion:
Love it. And my wife does too!