Genius moment...

After making that drastic error with the veneering, it cleaned up reasonably...not perfect, but sufficiently well for it to be passable. All the surgical inscisions will be on the underside so won't be visible, unless some inquisitive ne're-do-well gets down on his benders for a closer look! The most important thing is that the top came out perfectly...four bookmatched leaves.

Even the biscuits for the drawer unit have been cut...














In the pic above, the four main parts have been biscuited together with a small locating piece of oak in each corner (the groove is for the back panel) to bring everything into line. This has proved quite useful as I needed to shoot in the corners dead flush ready for the 20mm lipping to go on.















One thing that's been a puzzle to my limited mental capacity over the last few days is just how the hell to line up all these heavy bits of wood to mark out the mitres for the Chinoisery style jointing?

Then the penny dropped! In a flash of absolute genius (which I have to say, happens all too rarely) I needed to work backwards (so to speak) as the accuracy of the joint was dependent on how well the biscuits lined up, so I took particular care to ensure that they were 'spot on'. I was then able to mark the extremities of the mitres with a sharp marking knife...shown at the point of the yellow arrow in the pic above...














...so that once the lipping had been applied and flushed level, I was able to turn the micro-marks (yellow arrows again) into proper marking lines (orange arrows) and then pencil in the mitres.

Sometimes, my undisputed talents defy belief... I need to polish the halo a bit more!