I built a bunch of 24" wide by 24" deep cabinets for my garage out of high quality 3/4" plywood. They are screwed together. The tops are also 3/4" ply. The bench on top of the cabinets is 2 layers of 3/4" ply.

I'm looking for a new metal lathe that could weigh 400 lbs. The weight would be spread over at least 2 cabinets. The load on the ply would be compressive.

My gut feeling is that the cabinets can handle this load but I want to make sure I'm not being overly optimistic. A failure would be very unpleasant.