In trying to build the joinery workbench, I chose to use drawbores to help reinforce the mortise & tenon joints.
Drawboring is a very old technique for joinery, used in the age when glues were expensive or non-existent. The idea is to drill a hole in the wood holding the mortise, and then drill an “offset” hole in the tenon about 1/16” closer to the edge of the tenon. When the two are joined and a peg is hammered into the two sets of holes, this “draws” the tenon further into the mortise and helps close it up.
You will often see this in old furniture and houses, and the Amish still use it today (look at their home construction). In this case, I’ve got some large 3-1/2” and 5-1/2” timbers, and I’m using 3/8” pegs to help seal the joinery together. Here they are all put together and glued up. I put some clamps on originally when laying out where the offset pegs would go, but once hammered in, I can just leave them there to dry.
Next step is to complete the tenons on the cross pieces and drill holes for the bolts to go through. This will enable the bench to be easily taken apart are re-assembled