Hi all. I'm building a dining table designed by Daniel Chaffin and featured in FWW back in 2013. Picture attached. I'm getting ready to glue up the base and have a couple of questions.
Chaffin Table.jpg
First, where the heck does the glue go? More specifically, it's not clear to me whether I should apply glue between the vertical table post and the horizontal table braces. It's a ~9" wide face-to-face cross-grain joint...gluing the whole thing attracts me for strength, but I'm worried it'll tear itself apart. The alternative is to just apply glue between the braces and the rails.
Second, while I have you, I'm thinking of prefinishing several components with at least a coat or two of Tried and True varnish oil before the glue up. (The post-apron-stretcher joint area seems like it'll be a bear to deal with.) Is it a bad idea to prefinish the ends of the through tenons as a way of helping to deal with the glue squeeze out?