Wow, thanks for all the great ideas and insights everyone!
I think a short-legged Moravian bench would probably be the most functional. I found this photo from a Chris Schwarz blog post of just that: https://www.flickr.com/photos/popula...7625923731671/ Although I don’t think I would put a leg vise on it.
But I think part of my motivation is the “fun factor” of something crudely simple – and it doesn’t get much more simple than a chunk of wood on four sticks. It’s also only two trips to the “job site”; one for the top and one for the legs!
I do kind of like the tiny sawhorse idea as a back-up. If loose legs cause problems, I’ll have options and one would be to just make some tiny sawhorses and loose peg them into the top. But I’m hopeful that loose legs will work because after scouring the internet looking for loose leg examples of roman benches (spoiler alert: I only found a couple and could not ascertain much about whether or not they would work long term), I did discover that unwedged legs are pretty much standard practice for carvers’ log mules. It’s not the same thing, but I’ll consider it a proof of concept. It makes me think that the only reason you don’t see roman benches with unwedged legs is because normally you wouldn’t need to knock the legs out so why not just go ahead and wedge them?
I’ll give it a shot. We intend to build a small garden this spring so I have an actual deadline, which means it will probably get done. But first, I need to make a reamer and I have a chunk of beech and an old compass saw blade sitting on my bench waiting for me….