Tréteau XVII

I figure that after two posts in a row with a lot of text, the readers might appreciate a more picture-heavy account, so back to the French sawhorse. Continuing on from the last installment, I am working on the two legs which have their side faces plumb, in French termed faces aplomb:


At this stage I am working on the mortises only, and where I last left off, the mortises had all been marked out. Now it was time for a little hacking and grinding. I started with the upper mortises for the short side x-braces, drilling some pilot holes to start:


Then it was time to get the chisels in there to dig a bit further:


These mortises are compound, though not too steeply sloped, however they do taper as well. Here's the exit:


And the entrance:


Those upper ones were fairly straightforward to cut out. Next I tackled the more acutely-angled mortises which receive the tenons from the long side braces down near the floor:


The exit side of the mortise, tapered like the previous set:


Getting most of the way there - here's the entry side at about the 70% mark:


And 95% done:


Another view:


How about another view?:


So that pair of mortises are now complete:


The next step on these two legs is to process the blind oblique mortises for the lower set of tenons on the short side x-braces. I'll deal with that in the next post in this thread. Thanks for dropping by today.

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