The bench is almost finished – I just need to secure the top (which I have not done just yet while I figure out what to do with the hoover) and do the finishing touches.

In the end I did the leg like this:

it is strong and the bench is very solid, I left a void in the leg so I could install some LED lights for that cheap discotheque vibe:

I am not sure what to do with the finish – I might stain and varnish the top at least. For finishing touches, I’m thinking of an upstand along the back and I will also cut a curve on the front left hand side top to avoid the sharp corner.

I might use a roundover bit on the edge of the top, but will experiment with some scrap first. If that does not look any good, I will glue on some trim.

One disadvantage of having the flippable section in the middle (to accommodate a mitre saw) is that even slight movement of the plywood will be very visible as the centre piece will sit slightly higher or lower than the adjacent edges. It is level now (or will be when I fix everything down) but I wonder how long it will stay that.

I might try and find some way of clipping the centre section to the neighbouring sections, although at the moment I can’t think of how to do that.