Dan,
Your approach would certainly certainly work, but it is also possible to make the sliding lock entirely of wooden pieces joined to one another with domino mortises, and without need for a screw hole in back to limit travel. Here's what I am thinking of (same as I tried to describe in my earlier post):
1) Make a deep mortise into the edge of the door (parallel to the plane of the face of the door) to receive the sliding domino that functions as the bolt of the latch.
2) Mortise the edge of the frame, case or other door to receive the latch when extended to engag (lock) the door shut.
3) Mortise the front face of the door. The widthwise axis of this mortise must be parallel (and preferably but not necessarily centered) relative to the sliding axis of the latch bolt in its mortise that you made in step 1). This face mortise should be for a domino of smaller size, e.g. 5mm than that used for the bolt (6, 8, or 10 mm), but again, it does not have to be since the widthwise direction of this face mortise is perpendicular to the widthwise direction of the mortise for the bolt. Don't overlook the fact that you can overlap mortises with a Domino machine to get any cross-sectional area size you want. and that you can cut domino tenons of different lenths, widths and thicknesses than the standard sizes sold by Festool. This face mortise should not extend all the way to the door edge so the the end of this face mortise slot will act as a stop for the part that connects the bolt to the decorative handle seen from the front side of the door. This face mortise needs to be wider than the width of the domino used to connect the bolt to the handle. If you use a dowel, the face mortise could be a cut with the Domino machine on its narrowest setting using a 5mm or larger diameter bit. But I would rather use a shortened 5 mm domino to connect the bolt through this face mortise to the decorative handle piece. Insread of a dowel, you can also cut a notch in the stub connector domino to allow greater sliding travel range in the face mortise, while still taking advantage of the anti-rotation characteristic of domino joints. This notched connector allows use of a smaller face mortise slot width, thereby keeping more wood of the face near the edge of the door, i.e. it keeps the door edge is stronger.
4) Mortise the back of the handle piece (or drill a hole to receive a stub dowel).
5) Slide the bolt into its mortise, then insert through the front face of the door the connecting domino or dowel into the mortise or hole in the bolt, then press the decorative handle onto the stub of the domino or dowel.
6) Dry fit the mechanism to ensure that the relative dimensions of pieces of the latch and the mortises allow the sliding latch to work as you intend them to.
7) Apply whatever finish to the project including the decorative front handle, then wax the bolt and the mortise through the face, then do final assemblyyour domino lock/latch to the project.
Does anyone on FOG know Bill who posted this at Sawmill Creek? Maybe they could invit Bill to also post it here and explain exactly what he did.
Dave R.
