Okay Ray, I'm laughing out loud for real here. Yep, I did mine with just a little help and there was no happy hobbit festival going on here either. Lol. It's hard work for sure! Amazing once you start carrying it in the house, you really get a practical understanding of the word "mass." That stuff is HEAVY.
Okay, your build is looking amazing man! It looks like you are using some sort of form for the openings under the bench to get 'em so round. Looks fantastic.
I had a thought regarding your build based off of something you posted earlier. I'm going to make a suggestion here, and also a little prediction that will make you hate me and fill you with doubt. Sorry man.....
Your exposed core end, which is the front of the feed, I'm a bit worried about that. Not actually worried mind you, but hear me out here. So, that's the part of the core that gets the most abuse. You will end up shoving wood down in the feed, and you will pry the wood back trying to shove some little bits down on the bottom of the feed out of the way. In doing so you will be levering that face of the core out towards the middle of the room. You will try not to do this, and you will do it over and over again. I swear at myself all the time to take it easy, but it's just so natural to poke at the fire, it happens. Also, as the refractory goes through heating and cooling cycles, I predict cracks. Not anything that will matter, but cracks will happen. So, I fear that if you leave that face exposed, you are going to eventually get a crack there, which will cause you no end of worry. Then you will lever wood in the feed and you will see that crack work a little, open and move a bit, and you will really worry. I don't think it's anything to worry about in reality, but here's my suggestion...
Bring your cob out and around and cover that face. Use a real cob with a good straw component. You can then face that thing with rocks the way you are doing the base, or just cob, or tile, or anything really. But yeah, capture that whole core in cob so you don't see the crack that will end up there, and to hold the whole thing together so nothing can come apart.
That's my suggestion. I figured I hadn't heard you worry about anything for a little while so I thought I'd help!