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KGB company is situated on the marked position in the map below.
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THE BED – MY STORY
09.12.2012
When I made a decision to make a bed, I knew that it would be a long-term process and that I would have numberless traps, problems and dilemmas if I wanted to avoid possible mistakes and oversights.
I have experience in capturing a new programme, first of all because I like challenges and a competitive spirit is not a new thing for me. I have come across similar situations when I made the chair and mailbox afterwards. I had good results and I am proud of the final result. I am not sorry for the time spent.
And so I rushed to make a bed just as if I were a pain in the neck. I watched some South-American soap operas and I saw that there were beds made of wrought iron but they were extremely frightfully made, only to replace the coulisses.
I went to furniture showrooms but I was not delighted with them. I even went to see recommended models which had respectful prices, but still there was nothing.
I threw myself onto the Internet. There was many of it there. The inspirations I got even overcame my imagination. I downloaded many pictures so that I could look at them all at ease, but I was not delighted.
I left the design for later on and started with statics and calculations.
I found the anthropology measures which can dictate only the height of the mattress from-to and that was all.
The producers of mattresses also have a menu “a la card” so that beds can be made according to existing typical dimensions of mattresses or a mattress can be ordered after a bed with desired dimensions is made.
The “a la card” variant is, of course, more expensive.
The producers of mattresses made more problems for me because the thickness of a mattress is from 17 – 30 cm. What if somebody puts memory foam on top of it? And I have to fit in the anthropology measures which are in a range of 46-56 cm. And some buyers want an option with a drawer for linen under the bed. There are also small wheels on the drawer. And so I have to fit in all that so that everybody is satisfied.
The first decision I made was the choice of material for the bed. When speaking of interior, I prefer phi or rounded cross-sections of iron because they are warmer and there is no possibility of cutting oneself when passing by them.
I made the choice of 60 mm pipes which would be the legs of the bed. On the upper side they would be closed with a convex calotte with the same cross-section. There were no such calottes on the market, so I consulted a few producers but there was no result.
I hired a carpenter and he tried and partly succeeded, but the metal sheet was 0.5 mm thick and the processing was not perfect.
I became angry and I tried to make them myself. I knew a lot about deep drawing and I refreshed my knowledge about it from some books. My turner got a drawing and task to make tools. When speaking of such interventions, one needs to have a water-press with two separate cylinders; the first one holds the metal sheet at the side while the other one makes the profile. I did not have such a water-press, so I tried with some other techniques to seize the metal sheet, and to make the profile with my own tools. The result was not satisfactory, but at least I tried.
I found a company abroad which produces hollow 60mm balls and so I imported semi-manufactured goods of which the balls are made and those are 60 mm calottes with an envious thickness of 3 mm. Since semi-manufactured goods were in question, my turner had to process them additionally but we got a good result. After welding the calotte onto the pipe, once again my turner processed the material and all that was OK.
We made several such pipes with different lengths, i.e. several different heights of bed legs. We welded the bottom with a nut where we install a plastic washer.
I constructed hanging of the sides and legs in Auto-Cad several days. It was not bad, but there were many parts so a manual was to be made.
Soon afterwards, I was not enthusiastic with my construction any more and then I came across a German bed which had a similar principle as our military bed but was much more modern. I decided to think about it in that direction and so I started to pursue the solution of this problem using the Internet.
I went even to websites of some patent institutes and I found the recipe there. I did not want to discover the wheel. I used the principle, adjusted and perfected it, and then I cut it on the numerical machine.
Bingo! It was a great pleasure for me when I finished this task.
There was still a lot of work to do. The sides of the bed drove me crazy. I searched for some deep and narrow boxes with rounded sides, but I could not find them because they did not exist.
I know what a problem it is when beds are made; when the sheets are tucked on the sides and nothing rounded and pleasant can be found there, but sharp and unpleasant.
I decided to construct a side – do-or-die. After several tests, the design fell into place; we constructed tools which support several different heights and which had a compartment in the lower part where screws could be hidden. We used thick cold-rolled metal sheets so that it would have a great bearing capacity. We cleaned it and painted it before folding it on its side which we declared as the inside one and after folding it and arc welding, we painted it also on the outside.
I wanted to be rational when deciding about the design of the filling. I did not like the solution with a couple of elements on the pillow through which one could fall down and hurt himself. I did not like the work where there were spikes, sharp endings and so on.
People sleep in beds, read, drink tea and make love. The pillow must be well filled. Curves must be used wherever it is possible because one can unknowingly be caught and hurt himself half-asleep.
The rounded material which I chose – steel with improved quality would be very difficult if it would be subordinated to a visual effect to give a fullness of the piece. That is why I chose tubular material, with a thick wall, which could be formed into any design and which could also accept our hollow coinage which we exploit very much. The pursuit after this material implicated a lot of travel and experiments.
Finally, we succeded in folding these pipes into circles whose jointing cannot be seen and which accept our rosettes as a filling.
Wandering after an appropriate design also took a while. I remembered an old snapshot from Viktor Gallery in Dubai because I liked that bed very much. We adjusted the design to our tools and needs and the bed saw the light of day. Later on, in the Rik-Fer catalogue I saw that they designed that bed which was in my bedroom and on this web-site.
The quality of the paint had to be a high one because a dynamic use is in question. After painting it and putting patina, it is necessary to cover all with binary lacquer the way it is done with cars.
I bought a few sets of this too expensive acrylic paint and made experiments. For myself I chose gloss and not opaque, because it is more pleasant when touching it and it is easily maintained.
Regarding the mattress and planks – there are many producers and the prices have a wide range. I would not comment on the question whether the quality is adequate to the price.
I certainly recommend latoflex planks with an option of raising the head and feet. Regarding double beds, I recommend two seperate mattresses.
This is my story. It is already past midnight. I will fall asleep at once. I sleep in a turbo-mode, only several hours. Is this because of this bed? Check it yourself!
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