More joinery

This is the most complicated piece I’ve built yet (and any carpenters out there must be laughing hard at that claim!). 

This is another end support for the kitchen benches, a frame from Silky Oak with 6mm Marine Ply panels. All corners are mortise and tenon joints, all hand cut. The complication this time around is the middle cross brace, included to support shelving on both sides, which represents my first ever blind mortise and tenon joints. Not exactly rocket science but tricky if you’ve never done such things before. The whole thing is glued together and clamped to keep flat while the glue dries. 

The unsightly burn marks on the side timbers are due to my pathetic, old and blunt saw in the Triton Workbench. I must get a new blade (and a new saw!) to do a better job. The problem is I had to mill these timbers to the appropriate profiles and the old saw is simply not up to the job. This should all sand out anyway but it is a pain in the butt.

I’ve also built this particular frame from more robust timbers with stronger joints because it will need to counter a torsional load. This frame doubles as both the end support for the kitchen bench and the main support for the back of one of the seats in the dining area. People getting in and out of the seat and pushing against the seat back while seated will tend to push this frame on a diagonal so I’ve over engineered it to compensate. I might also drop some dowels across the joints for added strength but I’ll do this from the inside of the frame so that they can’t be seen.