Then it was a case of chucking a dovetail bit in the ‘Rat and cutting the socket part of the sliding dovetails first. A router table would have done this bit equally well.
Then the mortise rail was clamped at the 12.5° angle to cut the tail half.
The ‘Rat is a real lifesaver for this sort of thing. Without it I would probably have shelved the idea simply ‘cos I wouldn’t fancy having to make a jig to do it some other way. I used a guide clamp to hold the stock up against the router plate.
The finished dovetails.
As is my habit, I made the fit of the sliding dovetails a little tight and tweaked them to fit with my side rebate planes.
I then cleaned up the P/T marks with a #4 ½ and applied a couple of coats of Patina.
Then a dry fit to see how it looks. At this stage the legs are yet to be cut to length, sides are still to be shaped and the dovetail housing for the stretcher rail is not yet cut.
