Cutting the Dovetails on the Rear Apron and Cross Member

 I cut the rear apron from a piece of hard maple that I had in the shop.  It is 7/8 inch thick, so I think it will be strong enough.  Also, the hard maple is more difficult to work but it was there so I thought I would use it.   I suppose I should look up the wood movement between mahogany and hard maple since they will be dovetailed together.   But I didn't, so I guess I am living on the edge!

I picked an arbitrary size for the four tails that I am going to cut, I picked four because that was how many there were in the picture of the underside of the Townsend Card Table.  Here is what the layout looks like:

 I cut them out with my dovetail saw and coping saw to remove most of the waste.  Then I chopped out the remainder with my chisels.

Then I used the tail board as a template to trace the pins on to the mahogany sides.  These are half blind dovetails so it is a little slower to cut out the pins since you need to leave material in front of the tail. You can not saw all the way through.

Then I pared the tails to fit and assembled the rear apron

After that I decided to add the center brace, but I just realized that the front is 3/4" lower than the rear.
So just dovetailing it front and rear would not be possible.  I have to mortise and tenon the rear of the brace and dovetail the front.  So that took a little extra time.
Here's what it looks like now:

If you want to watch the process, here is today's video:

Tomorrow I'll start work in the rear leg support and hinge.