Crafting a Modular Steel Loft Bed With a Desk Underneath

In this project I made a modular steel Loft Bed because I needed more space in my room and because I thought it would be cool I went through many design changes in this project and many problems. Overall it took me probably took me around 40-50 hours in class to complete this project and another 6-7 hours to complete the CAD model I took inspiration off of these 2 designs but mostly the one with the desk underneath it

I used a MIG welder, a bunch of steel, some 2x4s, nuts and bolts, some brackets and other things on this bill of materials

I made some rough sketches for the bunk bed and began to refine it more as I went on. I went through 4 different designs until one of them was acceptable

I tested different types of connections with wood to see which one was the strongest and I made a mini 3d print of the bunk bed to see how it would look. although the final design differed from these tests these were still helpful to help me try and figure out my design.

Made frame mostly out of metal but also had the desk made out of wood which I did not add to the cad (link to CAD= https://a360.co/3RFn22H Its also embedded right below this text.

Went to PRW steel in Atascadero and grabbed some steel with the right dimensions for the cad they were pretty quick with it and gave me a ton of extra stock I would recommend getting your steel or any other metals from them if you need any.

I used the grinder and tried the plasma cutter to cut sockets into the 90 Degree steel beams and i also cut other beams to correct length using the horizontal bandsaw remember if you are cutting 90 degree steel beams put it like a pyramid do not put it like a chair. I made these slots in the 90 degree steel beams in order to fit them neatly onto my steel tubing and bolt them together. Overall This took around 3-4 hours, but once I got the hang of it I was able to do it much faster.

I cut holes in the steel to put the bolts through. It was a very long process you have to first mallet where you want your hole to go then use the centre drill bit to go through completely. Then after that you have to use the step drill bit bit to increase the diameter of the hole then finally use a twist drill bit as well as chamfer and you should be good

I cut come of the 90-degree steel beams into brackets to hold other parts of the bed also had to drill holes through them in order to match the holes on the steel connecting to these brackets

Started to weld brackets on and steel together using the MIG welder Bodie was a big help in this as well. Overall took us around 6 hours to finish welding he did some and I did some. For our welding settings I liked to have it on around 3-4 volts and the wire speed at around 50-60. What we would do first is tac weld 2 spots and we would hold the welder at those spots for around 2 seconds each time. Then after that we would seam the pieces together, To do this we would drag the welder across the area we wanted to weld slowly. For examples if we were seeming a 3 inch piece to another we would drag and seem for probably around 5-6 seconds. Overall if was very fun to learn, If I was to do something different though I would try to warm up more with a few practice welds rather than jumping right into it.

I ran out of time end of year, so I am going to paint it and put wood on it at home. I would not recommend this project unless you have a ton of time to complete it and you know how to weld and use a grinder. But overall learned a lot doing this project and if you feel up to it I would say you should do something like this.