I'm in the process of building a knockdown workbench, following the general design of a short bench (similar to roman bench seen here).
Most of these use dowel style legs, which I am not confident in my ability to make, and the number of legs also seems to vary from 4 to 8 legs. I'd like to avoid that complexity and use a single 4x4 for each leg instead.
The current connection to the workbench top is based on what amounts to a primitive sawhorse formed by a 2x4 running between two 4x4 legs, which slots into a dado on the underside of the table:
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While I've run the dimensions through The Sagulator and the components themselves should ok past 1,000lbs, I'm unsure of how it will handle racking. For reference, these are the dimensions:
This is intended to be my main workbench, and will be used for all of my hand tool work. I've got a taller bench that's sturdy enough for working with my power tools (mostly limited to a corded drill and hand router). The tall workbench isn't heavy enough for working with hand tools, as I lose too much energy when working with the mallet and chisel. Based on my research on this type of bench, I'll be doing most of the work either sitting on the bench or standing with one foot on the floor and one knee on the bench, and will be generally closer to one of the ends than the middle.
This will probably see work for an hour or so a couple times a week in the evening, and longer on the weekends when I can swing the free time. I currently do mostly rough work, so the amount of planing will be minimal at first, though I expect that to increase as I get better (not much point to doing a lot of planing until the limit on how nice it looks stops being my skill deficit in other areas).
Additionally, my "workshop" is currently a covered back porch, so temperature and moisture control aren't really feasible.
For this to be stable, would the legs need a stretcher or other form of support?