adhesivewoodworking
Let me start off by saying I have some basic knowledge of tools (basic home repairs and patch jobs), but no experience with "actual" woodworking projects. For my first project I wanted to try and build a simple serving tray. Similar to this one.
My question is, where the corners meet, will wood glue be strong enough to hold the sides together? Or do I need nails or screws? Since I'm new to woodworking I'm not exactly sure how much holding power to expect from wood glue.
It might be good to consider a sliding dovetail.
Edit 11/16/13 To assemble your bed frame, the M&T joints with captured bolts with nuts to hold the corners together with the legs.
Just as a mention, a good hardwood needs to be used for the assembly. regular 2X4, 2X6s and other similar materials used in the construction of homes will be too soft, and when the joints are put under stress SPF, Hem fir, etc is going to compress and loosen the joints. To use this material you need glue and screws to hold all this together. That is not an option for you I think?
To assemble this, white oak, ash, Black walnut and a dense variety of mahogany would be a good choice, if it is not cost prohibitive. There are other hardwoods too, just give a look. Red oak and Douglas Fir are hardwoods, but very prone to readily split under the stresses you are going to expose the joints to.
Another good thing about some hardwoods, is that you will not need the same dimension of material to have the same strength as 2X framing lumber.
The sliding dovetails are ideal for the cross members into the side rails. To use the same joint for the attachment of the legs would produce a weak joint in my opinion, I have seen it fail in pedestal table legs.
To dissemble this in time, and to ease the assembly, which sliding dovetails can be a bear to slide together, I suggest tapering the dovetail so as it goes in, the joint gets tighter, it doesn't need much, a 1/16th of an inch over 4 inches on each side would dramatically increase the ease of assembly/disassembly. A router jig with a bushing guide on the router would make the female cuts in the rails, and a router table with a tall fence and a shim on the appropriate corner of the support for the slats would cut the male dovetail. A push bock would be handy to control the top heavy stock for this cut.
I have used wax paper over surfaces to keep it clean. Used tape over the shafts of bar clamps, small pieces of cellophane between blocks of wood that was clamped in place to keep faces of planks aligned while edge gluing.
Best Answer
Better wood glues make the claim that your joint will be stronger than the wood itself. That's to be taken with a grain of salt, as it really depends on the application. It's often true that a broken joint actually breaks off a layer of the wood rather than the glue itself.
In this case, if you glue the joint thoroughly I'd expect it to perform as expected, though the thickness of the side rails (and therefore the joint surface area) is a factor in ultimate strength. Unless the tray was dropped or otherwise impacted it will probably hold up well. That said, it might be wise to run a single small finish nail (with or without its head) through the joint to reinforce it. If you're going to stain it dark it's easy to hide something like that.