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The original was posted on /r/woodworking by /u/RickeyWeisse on 2024-11-12 16:31:08+00:00.


I posted something similar yesterday, but reposting here with more context and detail…

I’m building a 14 inch round side table for my mom and thought it would look cool to make the base using 3 pieces of wood with angled half laps. I first saw this image online for inspiration and thought, “this shouldn’t be too difficult to figure out.” LOL, I was wrong.

So, to prove that I wasn’t a complete idiot, I made one with 90 degree half laps, which wasn’t difficult, but as you can see, is clearly too wide for the size of my table top.

From here, I tried again (and keep in mind, I’m just using 2x4 scraps for all the prototyping), by making the half laps at 30 degrees. This made the base narrow enough, but of course, only works when piecing two pieces together…adding a third leg to this doesn’t work the same way it does with 90 degree half laps.

In a last-ditch effort to try to figure it out, I assembled a base where none of the legs are actually joined together, but follow a similar design to what I’m going for. With this one, I was hoping I could simply mark where the legs come close to touching to figure out where to notch each piece to join them together. While that felt a bit easier conceptually, it’s not exact at all.

I don’t actually hate the look of this, but at this point, I feel determined to figure it out. So here I am, once again, asking the internet for help. If anyone can think of an easy way to combine my latest prototype with my reference photo and help determine the specific cuts needed on each leg to join them, I’d certainly appreciate it. Thank you!