Good progress on the tapered sliding dovetails for attaching the legs. Last time I had already created the tails on the cross pieces, this time I routed out the slot on the tabletop. Some fine tuning is still needed and the cross pieces obviously need to be cut to length. Next time I can then already start with the legs if all goes well.

Another great day in the workshop. I sanded the tabletop down to thickness. And started on the joinery. For some reason I only took photos of the underside which has some knots. The foot in second photo is the mock up from pine and both the final one. I just wanted to get an idea of the scale and thicknesses of the various parts. The photo was taken before the final thickness was reached. I think I will make the feet a little wider and the tabletop is already a little thinner. The grain of the elm looks great!

The photos from today look a lot like from last time. The difference is that this time the boards are actually glued together and the tabletop is now in one piece! The glue up went smoothly thanks to the large press which ensures that the boards stay put and good pressure is applied evenly.

Other than glueing up the tabletop I also started working on the dovetails for the two pieces of wood that go across the tabletop below it. They are used both to keep the tabletop straight and to attach the legs to the tabletop. I forgot to take photos of those so I have nothing to show. Next time I will make the matching grooves on the tabletop.

Last time I had rough milled the lumber. The boards hadn't warped or anything so this time I went down to almost the final thickness. I left them a little thick so that I can still flatten the table top once I've glued it up. I also got the boards to their final widths, except the two outer boards which I left a little wide for now. I didn't glue up the boards yet but I did a dry run and they all fit nicely together so eh glue up should go smoothly the next time.

I couldn't quite decide the order of the boards. Or in fact, I think I got the order sorter but I can't quite decide which way the the top board on the last two figures should go. I maybe like the last one better.

I did some rough milling of the tabletop lumber today. The tabletop should be 100 cm wide. I can make that from 5 boards. I have a nice broad one for the middle and then two more on either side of it. This was just rough milling to get the boards flat. I will not let them rest for a while as they might still live now that I have milled them. I will do the final milling next time.

I also sorted out the attachment of the legs to the tabletop. I will use a tapered dovetail to attach a cross beam to the table top and then attach the legs to the cross beam with some reinforcements. The problem here is that the wood in the table lives very differently along and across the grain. The dovetail joint will allow the legs and the tabletop to move independently as the humidity changes over the year.