Reply To: Sapele mortise tear out
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As a guess, that little shelf was probably made with housings to hold the shelves. It looks like they added a dowel pin, probably for decoration. Paul’s “signature” for this kind of thing would be to bring a small tenon through instead of the dowel. It would be square, equal to the thickness of the shelf. But, it isn’t needed. The housings are probably stopped on the inside since the shelf is divided into two slats. I’m guessing the movable bookend goes through the space between the two slats and is shaped like a T so that it can slide when there’s no tension, but stay in place when books lean? That’s clever, but make the feet of the T fat enough so that they don’t break! Another option would be to have the bookend project through the gap between the slats and extend maybe a half inch below the bottom of the shelves. Use that portion as a tenon into a mortise in a separate piece. That would be much stronger.