The end panels have a decorative “grid”. This add interest to what would otherwise be a plain end panel set in the frame. This sort of decoration is common on Craftsman style pieces.
There will be a 1/4″ panel set behind the grid which will git into the rabbets down each leg and behind all of the end rails and grid pieces.
The joints are half lap style. The end rails each received pockets for the vertical dividers. The pockets are 1″ wide, 3/8″ deep and 1/2″ high. This was done on the CNC router. Apparently the pieces lifted a bit off of the bed of the CNC router in the process of clamping them and I have to deal with slightly varying depth pockets.
The vertical slats then have the tenons cut. This is another series of cuts on the radial arm saw. The tenons are 1″ wide and nominally 3/8″ thick (0.375″).
When making many repetitive cuts like this it easy to lose track and miss an end. I have learned to always neatly stack the pieces up and do a quick visual check to see if I have everything cut the same. If everything is uniform, then I can proceed to the next step and tear down the stops and setup and get ready for the next cut. At this point the vertical divider tenons are complete and I can check them in the end frames and move on to the next steps.
The horizontal dividers fit into partial half lap joints in the vertical dividers and mortises in the corner posts. The cuts in the vertical dividers could again be done on the CNC router but the clamping would be too time consuming. Given that the back side is concealed, the dado blade can be used (again).
There are 2 cuts to be made in each of the vertical dividers. I use a stop block and a removable spacer block. The spacer block is 2.25″ which is the spacing between the 2 cuts in each of the vertical dividers. First cut.
With this type of cut the radial arm saw wants to strongly self feed. In order to reliably not cut all the way across the divider slat, I added a stop on the cross arm of the saw. Not very elegant, but the clamp does the trick for the 24 cuts. Below it you can see the second cut has been made without the spacer black.
For the opposite side, slats the mirror image of the setup is needed. However due to lack of clearance beneath the radial arm saw motor an extra spacer block is needed and held in place by the spring clamp. Rather than re-measuring. one of the test pieces is put in place and the saw advanced and blade rotated to line up in the dado. Then the stop and spacer are clamped in place.
The max depth of the pockets is 0.4″ so the tenons will all be cut to this thickness and then trimmed to fit with a rabbet plane. This Lee Valley Veritas Medium Shoulder Plane is one of my favorite hand tools. I bought one as soon as it came out and it has been my “go to” tool for cleaning up mortises and rabbets for over 10 years. Far better than the Stanley 78 and similar that I had been using and much more manageable than the large shoulder planes.
Now I have the pieces for the ends dry fit assembled. As you can see, I have labeled all of the parts for final assembly. At this point everything is finish sanded. I have not yet decided on whether I will do a finish first and epoxy assembly as I did with the beds or conventional glue up and then finish or something in between.
Right side up.