Slat Fitting

The curved end rails made for some interesting routing for the mortises.  The slats were inserted into the bottom rail mortises and aligned behind each of the mortises. Then pieces of blue masking tape were used to mark the length to the bottom of the rail and the angle. An additional 1/2 inch was added to arrive at the final length.

The router was set up with a fence to guide the cuts and keep them centered.  However the direction of the plunge for the mortise is perpendicular to the bottom edge at that point. The ends of the mortises are then not parallel with the slat edges.  There are then 2 options:

Chisel the ends to be parallel with the slat ends. This is very hard with a  small gouge in the Oak.

Bevel the edge of the slat to approximate the angle of the slot end. This is FAR easier.

Below you can see the end rail and one of the slats. The slot nearest the slat has some small burn marks, so you can see the direction of the plunge. The end of the slat has been trimmed to length and the right end beveled to roughly match the mortise end. 

One final test fit with all of the slats in place.

Next step was rounding and beveling of the edges of the legs and rails.

Now on to the finishing.