rustic bench design help

[Silas Smith]

I am finally getting around to finishing the benches on my rustic tressel table. I'm planning on a simple 4 post design but I'm not sure how far to place them from the end and edges. The seat itself is 14" wide x 6' long and 1 1/2" thick and the legs are 3 1/2" square, but I might shave them down on one side to 2 1/2" thick to make the bench seem wider than it is. .

Is there a rule of thumb for distance from the edges?

I'll post when I'm done but coming from out west where the only lumber was pine and cottonwood, I'm loving Indiana. This table is made from barnwood hickory and based on the age of the barn and counting growth rings (about 50 per inch) I estimate this wood started growing long before we became a country. Its a pretty cool connection when you think about the last time this wood was worked and what that farmers world must have looked like.

[Lee Schierer]

One thing that happens when people sit on a bench that has legs set in from the end some distance is: If a person parks them self right on the end, their weight can cause the bench to pivot on the legs and dump the person onto the floor. The farther back from the front and rear of the bench the legs are set, the less stability the bench will have. I would set the legs no more than 1/2" in from the front and rear edges and no more than 6" from the ends.