Turned my attention to my 4x4 legs. I leafed through one of my workbench design books, and saw a trestle table workbench I thought looked pretty good. Wife made it clear that anything with a permanent home in the basement had to resemble furniture, and I thought the design would fit the bill. I have not done any through-mortises before, so that will be a new experience for me. I also haven't cut standard mortises and tenons on stock this wide, either. Usually when I am using construction-grade lumber, it is for a quick knock-up or utility furniture, and joined with screws and glue. So I am sure learning opportunities will abound on this one.

Started by cutting the posts to length.



Then the jointer and planer routine started again.




These were horrible to joint and plane. Stuck to the planer table like crazy, and would periodically get wild blow out. Twice, they jammed the outfeed roller of my planer, which is not an easy task. But eventually, they squared up.


At least for now. These are so wet I still anticipate some twist as they dry.

Used a pile of clamps to figure out a lay-out.


Then started marking out mortises.




I have some big old mortising chisels, designed to do brute work in bashing through thick wood. And so I bashed out the first two mortises by hand.