MasterSplinter - Would you suggest that I sand it back a bit, then re-apply coats of oil and burnish the hell out of it, or just burnish it on my next coats? Again I reiterate that I'm not too fussed about it's finish at the moment. Maybe I'll flip it over one day and experiment on the under side.
Christos - Well you see my original plan was to have all of the steel 5mm thick. I welded together the first leg piece and it was wobbling like jelly! So change of plan, I doubled the thickness of the vertical pieces to 10mm, left the horizontals at 5mm and that made it a lot more rigid.. The flex is definitely occurring in the horizontal lengths. When I secured the timber top I think the weight accentuated it a bit more. As a result of the plan change I now have 4 spare 5mm x 130mm x 705mm pieces that I can use to make braces. So from the sketch below, you're thinking like the green bars? I was thinking more the red - I'm open to suggestions though. To be honest I'll probably wait until October when the father in law comes to visit from interstate (he's a retired carpenter) to get his 2 bobs worth as well.
Attachment 318478
I am indeed thinking of my next project. I would love to make a dining room table, but that might be a bit ambitious as I probably wouldn't want to put steel legs on an indoor table.