I’m so close.  I can feel it.  The legs went into the Stent Panel Workbench last weekend.

If you squint really hard, it looks like a single board slab.

Fitting the legs was a somewhat arduous process.  Both mortise float and coarse rasp were required to bring the mortises into square and plumb.  Then each tenon was fine-tuned with a shoulder plane for friction fit.

I finally got a sense of how solid this thing will be when flipping it over for the first time.  Admittedly, I will remove a few lbs of wood when leveling the seams on the mortise strips.  But that weight should be added back in the short stretchers.  It’s already heavy and it does not seem to move under planing force, even without the extra weight of a quick release tail vise. Which will probably see more use as a front vise, anyway.

Prettier than I would have expected.

Once the top is generally flattened, I still have to straighten the front edge and square it to the right end (where the tail vise will sit).  Only then can I bring the legs into plane with the front edge and finally flatten the work surface. After that, I will install the mortised bench stop.

Seeing how the legs fit together, I am now leaning toward gluing the legs in place (hide glue, albeit). This may or may not be the right choice, but this is likely not my last workbench. And I own a heat gun.

JPG