Rope bed age?

I have a rope bed which has been in my family since forever. I am wondering how old it might be. All of the rope beds which I have read about were held together at the corners with steel bolts which engage nuts which were inserted into the side rails. Mine is different. The side rails have threaded dowels inserted into their ends. These protrude through the corner posts and are secured with wooden nuts. The first photo is of the bed which measures 68.5 inches long, inside the frame, and 42.5 inches wide, again inside the frame. The photos don;t show th true color of the bed. It is actually much darker. I believe that it might be walnut. The second photo is a close-up of one of the nuts. As I look through the dim recesses of my memory, I think that I replaced the dowels in the footboard, so those protruding dowels are probably on me. The dowels in the headboard are nearly flush. The only metal which I can find in this unit consists of four pins or nails, one in the top of each of the tenons, presumably to hold the threaded dowel in place. These are round, If they are nails, were they put in when the unit was originally made, or added later, perhaps as part of a repair. I had to replace both of th e dowels in one of the side rails. I made a jig to follow the thread on an original. broken part, so I could match the original thread pitch, 4.375 tpi. The wood threading tools which I have found available today produce threads of 6tpi for one-inch stock. Any insight into how old this piece might be would be appreciated.

 

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me trying to enlarge one photo , just to help a newbie and give interested folks a look......

but obviously.....not working for whatever reason...
so I leave the TRY there knowing someone else will be along to explain..

private settings
new camera phones
file size limits
go back and hit full image

u no....the stuff u do so well !!!!

 

Hi @William Klopfenstein and Welcome to ANTIQUERS!! Offering a bit of help here that you may want to copy and save until you're used to doing it on a regular basis when posting!!! FIRSTLY, you always want to try and use an UNCLUTTERED background....when possible, sharp, un-blurry images, and JUST before posting, click on the VERY top image after they're loaded, which says to 'post every image FULL SIZE'.....that will load them ALL at once full size.....now....just for future reference if needed.....

For Future reference, when posting images:

Try emailing them to yourself as "medium" size, they should then be under 1 MB!

Each image MUST be UNDER 1 MB....
There are instructions on site here on how to reduce the size of your image, if that is the problem......you are allowed up to 8 images per post!!! Here are some links to the instructions:

If on the computer:
https://www.antiquers.com/threads/posting-a-thread-and-uploading-pictures.15990/

If on an iPhone:
https://www.antiquers.com/threads/resizing-photos-on-i-phone.35097/

And if on an Android phone:
https://www.antiquers.com/threads/using-an-android-phone-for-pics-on-antiquers.41709/

 

For starters, am just going to try to sharpen your images a bit, IF I can:

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Best I could do.....pretty blurry....sorry....​

 

When I first tried to upload them, I got a message that the files exceeded the limit. So, I went in and reduced the file size, probably contributing to the lack of sharpness. Also, my light was not good resulting in a slow shutter speed. Thanks for the help.

 

Have not seen this type of attachment before. Would think at least as old as 1850. Could very well be a few decades earlier. Hard to tell wood from these pics. Possibly maple.

 

I have disassembled the bed. I took a couple of photos of the dowels in the ends of the tenons. I also took a small chisel and gouged a small area on the back side of one of the nuts. The newly exposed wood is a medium brown color, so I think walnut.

 

Interesting, never ever seen that thread/nut thing before

 

I have similar thread on one of my vanity tables that is date 1890s.. Where is it from? Here you can see the similarity...

 

Do you know the size of your threaded rod, and the thread pitch? The number of threads per inch? Thanks.

 

I will try to measure and let you know, but I can't promise when, i am facing lack of space (as we probably us collectors all do ) and it's hard to get to it