Furniture

Recessed-leg table

On an an (案) the legs are set in from the ends of the top rather than at the corners. That calls for different joints at the leg tops.

1Top

A grooved, mitred frame with a floating panel and battens, or a thick single board.

A mitred frame grooved on the inside, a thin panel with a tongued edge floating in the groove, and battens underneath.

A tapered dovetail batten driven across the back of a panel, its ends tenoned into the frame: the reason old tabletops stay flat.

Thick single-board tops get a mitred, tenoned end strip to hide the end grain.

A cross-grain strip mitred and tenoned onto the end of a thick board: no end grain shows, and the board resists splitting.

The leg is slotted to clamp the apron and spandrels (jiatou), or its face is cut to receive a notched apron (chajian).

The leg top is slotted to clamp the apron and its spandrel heads, then tenons into the top.

The leg is cut to a pointed shoulder that the grooved apron straddles, finishing flush; the heavier the top, the tighter it grips.

Tenons on the leg tops go into blind mortises under the top.

The tenon stops inside the post, so nothing shows on the outside: neat, a little less strong than a through tenon.