The most challenging part of this project is the fact that the legs are curved and offer no horizontal / vertical reference plane. I ended up building a square frame to mount them on to establish a horizontal / vertical reference plane to work off of.
I'm kinda stumped as to how to make the connection of the shelves to the sides (legs). There is a good glue area (2" x 2") but I'm afraid I need some sort of mechanical joint to resist load and racking. Normally a simple screw would do the trick, but in this case it would be difficult to hide the screw due to the multi wood lamination (I don't want walnut in maple or visa versa). I'm thinking of a half lap joint (see sketch) but would prefer not to embed the side rail into the frame.
How would you make the joint ?? Any and all suggestions are welcome, and if you have a better design idea, please speak up.
Pic 1 is my design I'm working from
Pic 2 is a sketch of the joint in question and the possible half lap joint
pic 3 is a the side rails showing the laminations -- I plan to trim the front of the shelf flush with the leg curvature.
pic 4 is the actual joint in question
Thanks, Tony