Joining Juxtaposition

The next big project is under way…a large, free standing cabinet with eight legs, in the style of the late, great Alan Peters, with a distinct element of Gordon Russell and a nod to JK.

The horizontal elements will be in solid elm, with the vertical sections being veneered and lipped ply.

The question that was causing me a bit of botheration was…

…how to join the two?

As any numpty will tell you, joining solid to man-made is fraught with difficulty, simply because the fore mentioned will move and the after mentioned won't, so somehow we have to allow for the movement.

So here's how I've done it.  Plan A, which should work.  Note the 'should'…..

Shown in the pic are the two vertical sections with three 22 mm holes at each end, each of which contains a chunky bit of sapele to act as a cross-dowel (it's actually quite happy to be there, but you'll no doubt appreciate the gag)

Across the top of the solid horizontals will be an elongated slot, to correspond with the positions of each dowel into which a large panhead screw will fit and engage with the dowel.  Between each dowel there'll be a 5mm Domino to act as a reference and it'll be glued into one half so that the other will be free to slide about in an elongated slot.

To cover up the slots above the panhead screws, there'll be  sections of Indian Ebony which will be raised and rounded…sort of a 'Green and Greene' type of effect.  Peters was known to have said that a potential problem could be turned into an interesting feature.

…which is exactly what I'm trying to do here.

Confused at the back?…stay tuned for yet more confuzzlement (and the inevitable cock-ups) as this one continues.