How to Make a Jurassic Park Jeep Bed (Or a Tasty Mobile Snack for a T-Rex!)

My Son is absolutely mad for dinosaurs (aren't all kids?).

His favourite film was (and remains to this day) Jurassic Park. He did not have a dinosaur themed room. He had a fairly neutral, well presented but unremarkable bedroom. Therefore, the only logical course of action I could take as a Father was to declare that his bedroom was a little tatty because there was a scuff on the wall, and was in urgent need of redecorating.

After a little bit of searching and thought, I realised that there were no "Dinosaur themed" beds that he (ok, ok... That I) liked, so I decided I should make him something.

I was part way through researching (read: Lazily flicking through google image searches on my phone, glass of red wine in hand) and I spotted an amazing set of instructions for sale here

I bought the instructions, and found them to be comprehensive, well written and clear.

In this Instructable, I shall run through my own journey making the bed, following the instructions I was given. I will NOT, however, be providing you with the instructions. You will have to purchase these - but believe me they are well worth the money.

A note on the pics. Sorry, the room was too small to get really good pictures... So please excuse them.

The full bill of materials is available in those instructions I just told you are well worth the money. But you will need:

MDF or plywood sheets (I used 18mm MDF)

Various sizes of softwood (I am in the UK so had to convert a lot of the sizes and adapt the plans slightly for US standard sizes that were not available here).

Two (or four if you want to detail both sides of the bed) old ATV tyres

Wood glue

Assorted screws (I used self drilling wood screws)

Paint (whatever colour you want to paint the bed!)

Essential tools:

A saw

Pencils

Tape measure

Jigsaw

Drill

Set square

Straight edge (long ruler, or spirit level, or something)

Something to use as a workbench (I used an old pallet, on top of an old pallet. This in turn was sat on top of an old pallet, and from there it was old pallets all the way to the floor!).

Sandpaper

Sanding block

Useful but not essential tools:

Mitre saw (makes cutting accurate angles a lot easier, and faster)

Electric screwdriver (Less aggressive and more compact than using a drill for screws)

G clamps and sash cramps (for holding things together while you screw them together)

Router (for finishing edges and detailing)

Hole saws (for cutting the arcs on the grill, and the headlights)

Electric sander (for tidying up the cuts you made in the MDF)

I didn't have a proper work space. I had a small, tatty, grotty concrete yard at the back of my house. I used that to work in. It was far from ideal, but once I had evicted the local wildlife, cut down the jungle that was growing and frightened a couple of local cats, I had a space I could work in.

Carefully prepare your workspace. Make sure you have enough space to do what you want to do.

Read through the instructions carefully, cover to cover, and make sure you visualise every single step.

I did not do this. I went bowling in with not a single shred of preparation and merrily went about cutting up materials. I am an idiot, the epitome of how you should not do things. Heed my warnings! Unless you like buying more timber...

Having read the instructions cover to cover, I suggest you reward yourself with cake and coffee while you read it again.

I opted to measure and cut everything in one epic cutting session, then take everything indoors to assemble it.

The reasoning was that I live in the North East of England. Where I live we are very lucky, in that it only rains, on average, twice a year. Once from 1st January until somewhere around mid-August, where it stops for a day or two, and then starts again until 31st December.

With that in mind, I wanted to be done with anything that involved using power tools outdoors ASAP.

One thing I wish I had done before cutting was measure the width of the mattress I was going to use. The dimensions in the instructions are for a US sized mattress. In the UK, our mattress standard sizes are different. Like everything in the US, mattresses are bigger. So I found that the mattress had a gap around it large enough to lose a family pet. This was easily solved with a rolled up duvet but I would have preferred the mattress fitted in the first place.

Measure VERY carefully and check several times before cutting. I had to buy more timber, because I am an impulsive impatient moron who thinks he knows best.

SAFETY TIP! To cut MDF, you need to wear a dust mask. You don't want to inhale the dust! Safety glasses are a good idea too...

A few things I found...

1. Freehand cutting MDF of this thickness with a jigsaw meant the blade flexed and wandered quite a bit, particularly on the fiddly bits. Go very steadily, try and not force the jigsaw to cut too fast and use appropriate cutting speeds for your blades.
2. Clamping your straight edge to the MDF to use as a guide for the jigsaw helps a lot too.
3. I did not own a mitre saw at the time, but now owning one, I would strongly advise you buy one! They are so useful and would have made this project way easier!
4. I used a router to cut out the wheel centres for the ATV tyres. I made a very sophisticated circle cutter... By winding a screw 3/4 of the way into the "middle" of the circle I wanted to cut. Then I tied string to the bit of screw sticking up, and tied the other end to the router. I adjusted the radius by changing the length of the string until I was happy, and then just used the string to guide the cut in a circle. It worked very well for my purposes!
5. Using a hole saw to cut radiuses in the grill and then "connecting" the holes making them into a slot with the jigsaw would have been easier. I did not have a hole saw of the correct size. I wish I did.

A quick clean up and I brought all the parts into the house.

I assembled the base first.

Since this bed would have excited children jumping all over it, I overengineered it a lot. By overengineered, I mean I used long screws (lots of them) and super-duper-never-let-go-glue (that is, the strongest wood glue I could find). I would have cut mortice joints or something fancy, but I opted to just go basic and simple here, because I am lazy. Also the instructions said to do it like this.

The base is very simple, fast and easy to assemble, almost agricultural, but since it would not be seen and needed to be strong, it was ideal.

Using G clamps or sash cramps to get everything in the right place before screwing it together helps a lot.

Follow the instructions on your glue, and apply as directed (my glue said for best results, apply liberally to one surface, push the two surfaces to be glued together, pull them apart again and then compress them together and hold).

With glue applied, I clamped and screwed each joint and removed the clamps. Then I added more screws. At this point, the base was in danger of being made of screws held together with wood. So I stopped there.

The next thing to assemble was the grill and front end.

I was really, really pleased with how this came out. As I said earlier, it would have been better had I used a hole saw to cut a circle at the top and bottom of the slots and then used the jigsaw to finish, but I did not have a hole saw. I had to cut them by hand, carefully following my pencil marks.

Again, this was liberally glued together and then held with screws.

This is the focal point of the bed, so it needed to look good. It would have been better if I had installed headlights, as was always the intention, but I never got around to doing it. You can buy circular LED lights for this that run off 12v.

I almost stopped here and nailed it to the wall as wall art, but then I turned around and saw the pile of cut timber waiting for me to do something with it. Best I get that all put together before my attention span dries up...

Since the bed would be going against the wall, I intended to only detail one side of it.

However, because I have all the foresight of a pile of mushrooms, I had not really thought about which way the bed would need to point, and by extension, which side to detail.

I detailed the wrong side.

So I went outside, and cut more timber to detail both sides.

The instructions were really good here, in that they gave inner and outer lengths for the bevels you needed to cut. This meant that having no protractor was not an issue.

Using the trusty g-clamps and more glue, I assembled the sides. There was a little adjustment and fettling to get it right here, but once happy, I screwed the sides from the "inside" face of the side into the fenders (I guess that is what we can call them?) to hold them. Again, excited children jumping on this meant that I needed to make sure this was secured well.

I thought it best to leave it overnight to dry at this point so as not to ruin my work so far by hastily assembling the rest of the bed...

Having decided to leave it overnight to dry, I then decided that 15 minutes was more than long enough and proceeded to assemble the sides of the bed into a jeep shape.

At this point, I STRONGLY advise that you do not resist the urge to sit in it and make Jeep noises. Pretending that you are actually being chased by a hungry T Rex is not mandatory, but it is compulsory.

While sitting on the floor re-enacting the iconic T Rex chase scene in Jurassic park for the fourth time, I realised I had probably better put some screws in.

I applied liberal amounts of glue, and screwed the sides together and left it to dry for a minute or two.

I lifted the top section onto the base, and offered up the ATV tyre.

I realised that the Jeep was too high. At this point, the glue had started to really set in the base, so I had to trim the legs in situ with a hand saw later on. This made a LOT of mess in the living room, and was not at all an easy task. I would STRONGLY recommend somehow magically knowing ahead of time how long to make the bed legs by doing something drastic like measuring the tyres and then cutting the legs to suit BEFORE you glue and screw them together.

Aside from the height issue, I was very pleased with how it was all coming together.

Unable to resist, I jumped back into the Jeep and this time pretended I was seeing a Brachiosaurus for the first time. As I gazed out the side of the Jeep in mock awe, I happened to look at the living room door.

The door looked narrower than the Jeep. I jumped out of my Jeep, and dodging the imaginary parasaurolophus drinking imaginary water by my Jeep, I measured the door. Then I measured the Jeep. That was NOT going to fit in an assembled state getting it out the door and up the stairs.

I jumped into action and unscrewed the sides, but... The glue had already taken. It took a LOT of persuading. And some colourful language. But I got there in the end...

I would NOT recommend gluing the sides together, nor gluing the top to the base.

After dragging all the pieces upstairs, I reassembled the Jeep in the bedroom. By this point I had also painted it in the base grey colour which was the closest match I could find for the Jurassic Park jeep.

I painted the base black as well as the detail in the grill. You can see in the photos that the room was not finished either - my impatient impulsiveness strikes again!

I fitted the "wheels" - this was done by screwing offcuts of timber to the legs, and hooking the tyres into these. There really was nothing clever here, just two chunks of timber, the tyre pushed onto it and the hub cab screwed to the timber offcuts.

I was very, very happy at this point.

At this point, I remembered that my lad was some sort of Hobbit, and there was no chance he was going to be able to climb in and out of this bed as it was.

After looking at several options such as an elevator, a catapult, a trampoline and a tractor beam to get him in and out of the bed, my laziness once again took the drivers seat and I opted for a ladder.

This was easy to make, and I pretty much just eyeballed it.

The first step was to watch Fellowship of the Ring to get an idea of Hobbit leg length. this yielded unhelpful results, so I watched The Two Towers to garner a better understanding. During the Battle of Helms Deep I kicked myself when Legolas suggested Gimli stood on a box to see over the wall. A box is LOADS easier to make than a ladder. But I had already committed to the ladder, so I watched Return of the King and being still none the wiser, I just guessed at proportions.

I cut the rungs, screwed and glued them between the rails, and then trimmed the rails to fit the bed.

I put hinges at the top of the ladder, this was to allow the bogeyman and all the under-the-bed monsters access (we wouldn't want them unable to get under the bed to hide now, would we?). Also, I intended on putting drawers under there, or toy boxes, as I realised at this point the bed was rather large and the room rather small.

Now came the final detailing. The iconic stripes that finished off the colour scheme.

The way I did this is very technical, so please do pay attention:

1. Use masking tape to mark the lines.
2. Paint the red bits.
3. Remove the masking tape.

I didn't really measure anything, I just looked at a pic of a Jurassic Park Jeep and eyeballed it.

Once the paint was dry, I removed the masking tape. I also painted the "hub caps".

My cockup with the mattress size is also readily apparent here. Measure your mattress, and adjust to suit!! If you make the bed too small you can always cut the mattress* up to fit or something...

*Don't do this.

Once the bed was finished, all that remained was a finishing touch in the bedroom. A dinosaur wall mural!!!

I bought this as a set from somewhere online. It arrived as a 6-panel kit and was very easy to install. It came with guides and marks, just apply wallpaper paste and stick it to the wall. Bish, bash, bosh, done.

You will notice that in the mural there is a T Rex and a Stegosaurus. Fun fact: The time between Stegosaurus going extinct and vanishing from the fossil record is significantly longer than the time between T Rex vanishing form the fossil record and homo sapiens appearing! That's how long dinosaurs were around!

So the mural is woefully inaccurate, but still looks cool as hell!

My sons reaction was priceless! He was SO SO happy with the bed and the room! However, when he saw it, he said "WOOOOOW!!!!".

"What is it?" I asked.

"It's a.... BOAT!" was his reply.

He is definitely my son...