Thanks Brian!
So the legs have a sort of craftsman/shaker style with the three vertical pieces. I’m not sure I love the look, but wanted to try something I hadn’t done yet, and seems to add a little something to the design. I ripped two long strips, and followed my typical MO. I hand planed two adjoining faces square and flat, and then ran them through the lunch box planer to final thickness. Pieces were then hand cut to length, accounting for the depth of the mortise. Then tenons were cut.
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The upper and lower stretchers were marked out and mortises chopped. As seen in the previous photos, I don’t spare any painters tape marking stuff. Because my tenon/mortise work is still a bit inconsistent, each one gets a sort of “custom” fit and I’d never remember which tenon goes to which mortise when all is done.
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As much as I procrastinate the glue up part, I took a deep breath and glued/clamped the leg sections.
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Did my best to get everything tight and square. Close examination will reveal slight gaps at the back side of the tenon/mortise joint on a couple. Never tackling a multiple set up where all the parts need to be darn consistent, I felt ok about it. Sometimes no matter how many dry fits/clamp ups, something goes awry. Then that nasty, throw perfection to the wind mind set comes in...”doesn’t matter, it’s on the backside and will be hidden by the shelf” (thank goodness!)
Then I had no excuses not to tackle the complete glue up. All went well. I might mentioned the other upside of this project is I needed one more Bessey 50”clamp. So even if this thing were to end up kindling...at least I got a cool clamp out of it.
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I tend at this point to start already thinking “I wish I had”, but the glue is dry so carry on.