Garden Table Build Process

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Just a quick update today. I've been gradually working my way through some more sweet chestnut, turning it into a large pile of equal-ish sized planks, planed on all four sides:

With all the bits dimensioned, I could lay them onto the table in about the right place to get an idea of how it might look:

The next job is going to be to start cutting the half-lap dovetails to fit the slats into the frame. I'm pretty sure I know how I'm going to do that for the central slats, but the ones towards the edges need a bit more thought because of the angled end. I thought I'd do a drawing to see if I could get my head round it:

Does that look reasonable? I've made the length of the outer edge of the angled dovetail be such that the tips are in-line with the tips of the normal dovetail (controlled in the CAD model by the lines with the pale green dots). I've then made the two angled edges parallel with those at the other end (e.g. the two lines marked with a cyan dot are parallel). Finally, I've made the depth of the dovetails equal (controlled by the lines with the red dots).

Obviously it won't be that perfectly matched when I do it for real, but I just wanted to check that the general shape looked sensible: any thoughts?

I am a hobbyist metalworker and woodworker. I work as an electronic design engineer and spend most of my working days in front of a computer so I enjoy having the opportunity to use my hands and make things in my spare time. I particularly enjoy making tools as I can then use them on other projects. This website showcases some of the things I've made.

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