I was given an old iron bed which is a mix of cast iron finials poured where steel rods and tubes meet up. My daughter and I have been doing the prep work and when I assembled the head and foot boards with side rails. The tops of the head and foot leaned in. Turns out the side rails are bowed down in the middle. The side rails I am pretty certain are cast steel and not cast iron. I'll do a spark test to verify. I was thinking of getting some flat stock maybe 3/16" thick by 1 1/2" wide and tack welding it along the inside of the rail on the vertical side. I could use clamps to pull the rail along the stock and tack weld my way down. The other thought would be to cut the vertical part of the side rail with a grinding wheel and then pull the gap together and weld it. I think over the length, it would be wavy when finished. Another thought is a hydraulic press, but I think it needs support now that the metal rails have bent. Last thought was to cut most of the rail out and weld in new stock. I could use a section of a new metal bed frame or angle iron. The bed was headed for the scrap yard, so it owes me nothing. Any ideas? I greatly appreciate it. In the first pic, if the rail is turned 1/4 counterclockwise, that would be up. The white paint is the inside vertical side of the rail.
About a half inch drop at the mid point. I can just about pull the rail up against the level, clamping it would be easy.
Sorta what I was thinking, but maybe if you could get 1 1/2 x 1 1/2 angle (3/16 thk minimum), you’d see longer lasting results after the straightening.
I drew out cross sections of the two ideas. The arrows are where welds would be. The sandwich angles leave no welds in the corner. The flat stock would let me weld up to the inside corner. It would also give me two locations down the length of the rail for strength. The angle would only have strength on the bottom of the vertical side. In theory, I am doubling the welds on the rail vertical with flat stock. I think. I could be wrong.
If you could torch/plasma cut some pockets/holes/slots in the original frame angle thru the web/90° corner, you could plug weld to the new angle....
For best fit tho, you might have to round over the new angle’s hard 90° to fit inside the existing frame angle.....KWIM?
Or grind some pockets on the new angle from the outside of the 90 would work too. I've got some calculatin' to do.
That’d work too. Understood, but the inside radius of the old rails.....square as well? Couldn’t tell from the pics above. Edit: Current structural angle has an IR, so I assumed/missed that you wrote “not rounded” inside....
Set it on a brick on each end, bow up, step on it and get it straight. Then using a 4x4 cut a leg to fit snugly under it so it doesn't bow again. Done.
this, except the 4x4 for aesthetics, it took 100 years of abuse so far, so unless you are going to have some very aggressive extra curricular activities in that bed it should last another 100 or so. try tp keep it original. perhaps an extra cross slat or 2 to distribute the load a little more equal. Remember the old mattresses had no frame so the center was the weak spot.
Good ideas. Tried it though, and the steel springs back. Either cast or drop forged rails. Very similar to a handle if a crescent wrench. It has raised letters of the manufacturer. Not very forgiving.
I ended up using 1/4" mild steel flat stock. The 3/16" right angle felt flimsy, 1/4" angle was just overkill. The rail went into my two big vises, with the flat stock sandwiched at one end. This pic shows how much it was warped, about 5/8" I took C clamps and worked my way up putting a tack weld every 4". Then did the same in the lower edge. I like the flat stock in that I can always grind the welds off if I ever want to sell this down the road and get it back to close to original.
