Shooting Table / Shooting Bench

I needed a shooting table that was portable and could be stored in a small space. I looked around the web and stumbled on this design from The Way to Native Chronicles. He had three videos and plans!! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tO9XGBsQIc&t=131s&ab_channel=TheWaytoNativeChronicles The plans are very detailed and easy to follow. I had Home Depot cut my plywood sheet in half at the store just for ease of handling. I used a drywall square to give me a fighting chance for accurate measurements. It may be just me, but the image in the plans with the measurements for the centerline piece isn’t oriented the same as the overall layout drawing. So instead of trying to lay the lines out by reading the plans upside down, I took the page in the plans and flipped the image to orient it the same way it was laid out on my sheet of plywood. All the measurement numbers were backwards of course…and to ease my brain load in the shop, I penciled in the numbers. The guide blocks were CA glued and screwed into the table top. I used a ⅜-inch wide blade in the oscillating saw to cut the ¾-inch sides of the mortises. I plunged the blade in on the initial cut and then made it slightly wider so a hacksaw blade could finish the cut. The hacksaw blade did surprisingly well! For the 2-inch sides, I used a 1 ⅜-inch blade and a flush cut saw to finish, as shown in the video. The weight reducing cuts were easy to layout. Referring to the drawing, I used the width of the tenons as a scale (2-inches) to determine the approximate size and location of each weight reducing cut on the drawings. I used a hole saw to make the radius in the corners. For the longer cuts I used my circular saw and guide to make plunge cuts and a handsaw or jigsaw to finish the cuts. The 12-inch radius on the centerline piece was a poke and hope exercise to find the right location for the beam compass in order to get the arc in the right spot. I spent a few hours trying to figure out the best way to flat pack the parts before taking the table to the range for the first time. I was hoping the weight reducing cuts and mortises would line up and I could use a strap or a nut/bolt to hold the parts together. I did manage to find a way to use bolts and nuts to hold all the pieces together, minus the seat, with the mortises and cutouts. But carrying all four pieces was awkward and all the pieces combined are still heavy. Plus the balance wasn’t right. I did find that in the fading light after shooting, it was hard to remember the orientation of each piece…I needed a better plan. About a week later I spent another hour or so of testing various combinations of ways to flat pack two pieces and working out the center of gravity for each pair to make carrying easier. I added small blocks as indexes for the seat to line up on. Then I drilled counter bores for T-nuts and epoxied them in. This was a fun build, and I am pleased with way it turned out. Once it warms up a bit, I will paint the parts with a Thompson Water Sealer finish I have. Thanks to The Way to Native Chronicles!