Setting up for the bench mortices.
Once complete I make all the tenons on the shaper. A whole lot easier than trying to do them on the saw with a tenon jig, due to the length of tow aprons. I'll do haunch mortice and tenon joints on the bench.
Once all parts are done, and bead complete now I mark out the top part of the haunch with a Japanese miter gage. Note that the mortice doesn't go all the way to the top
The cut can be done pretty quick on the bandsaw, or with a small dovetail saw.
Then its just a matter of slicing down the mortice at a 45 degree inside. One reason I like long blade chisels as shop chisels
Now for the fit
here's another view
Now for the final sanding.
....and fitting the box top so its perfectly flat to recieve the top. I like this smoothing plane from Clark & Williams. It does an excellent job expecially when running into the oposite grains, without tearing
Routing a finger slot can be a bit tricky and best done with clamping some start and stop blocks as well as an edge stop to dictate the size of the slot.
This will make lifting the glass a whole lot easier when replacing the art work. Shown is a template I'll use for tracing out the Lucite glass.
