I'm planning to make a desk with adjustable height. I want the legs to be two pieces: a lower, thicker leg from which a thinner upper leg can telescope. This means that the lower legs will essentially be a very tall open-top boxes which must support a fair amount of weight on their rims.
I know how to use a miter spline or a locked rabbet joint but I worry that those won't be able to support lots of longitudinal force. Do I need to worry about this?