Best Half-lap joint workflow

[eehite]

I'm trying to model a wooden frame with an arbitrary number of half-lap joints, but am not sure the best way to get there. I'm hoping that there's a way to cut the intersection between two bodies, taking half the cut from each body. I've been able to use the combine tool to do it, but that requires me to cut, reposition, then cut again using the other body as the tool.

Any suggestions? Image attached with an example of the type of joint I'm going for and the bodies I'm working with.

Thanks!

[etfrench]

I just did a box with halflap joints a couple of days ago.  I created a sketch on one end and projected the sides to the sketch. I then used the offset command to widen the slots a few thousandths of an inch. After drawing a line through the center, I gave that offsets as well. Use Extrude|Cut to create the slots.  Repeat process for the sides.

You can use the same process on your round frames. (Create the sketch on the flat side, not the round.)

p.s. You can use a circular pattern to create the clones of the first joint.

[eehite]

Thanks for the tip--that worked nicely for generating the intersections along one of the curved bodies.

However, if I want to intersect two curved patterns of these bodies, I still have the problem of the shape and location of the intersections varying depending on position along the body. 

Is there a good way to form these lap joints at the places where the bodies intersect without making a new sketch for each intersection?

Also, when I cut from the outer face of these arc-shaped bodies, a bowtie-shaped area always remains that I can't delete. Any idea what's causing these:

Thanks again!

[etfrench]

One tedious way of creating the halflaps is to create a copy of each ring, then split the rings in half (concentrictally if that's a word ).  Use the half rings in a Combine|Cut operation to create the slots in the full rings.  I can make a video later if you need one.

The bowties are left because the cutout boundary was smaller than the ring diameter.  Increase the boundary a few thousandths to remove them.

[etfrench · Accepted solution]

Here's a little video showing the Combine|Cut process:

Notes:

The first set of inner and outer half rings should be made larger before the copy operations

You may also have to increase their width a few thousandths of an inch in order for the rings to fit.

I only show the Combine|Cut using one tool body, but you can use all of the rings that intersect the target body in the same operation.

If you don't need this to be parametric, then Direct Modeling mode would be a bit faster to create the copies as you can change the clones into plain copies (same as Paste New).

[eehite]

Thank you so much for your help! The process of making cut tools and offsetting them that you describe works beautifully. I'll update this thread with my finished product when I get there.

Truly appreciate the advice.