Between you, me and the fencepost I’ve been dreading the mortises in the bench top for the the legs. It just looked hard. No, that’s not quite right. It looked like something I couldn’t do without screwing it up.
I finally decided I didn’t care if I screwed it up. So today I laid out the location for the first leg and started making chips.
I drilled the holes halfway through the top first, then started chipping out the waste. That wasn’t too bad. The drilling was pretty simple, too.
Then I flipped the bench over and did the same on the other side. This is a heavy piece of wood, probably 250 pounds. Or, I’m a lot weaker than I thought. Or, perhaps, both.
The mortise wasn’t too bad, but sawing the sides of the dovetail socket was a pain in the neck, Mostly because everything was wobbling, and I couldn’t get a decent stance. Once the sides were sawn it was easy to pop out the waste and pare the bottom (more or less) flat.

Not my best sawing, but it was like doing it in the back of a pickup truck driving down a country road with all of the swaying
And, viola, one leg fit. I did a little cleanup after this picture to get it to sit the rest of the way down, and to sit square to the surface of the bench. It’s slightly twisted, flush on one side and about 1/8″ proud on the other side. I’ll square the up as a last step before finishing.
Now I need to do the other three legs, and stretchers, and the leg vise and I can put this thing to work. I’m going to have a bonfire with the old bench.