Building "sawhorses"

[ljmathias]

Swampfox: not following you on the taper- you mean you want to slope the leg so it's not straight up and down?  If that's correct, doesn't that put more stress on your joints (nails and reinforcing braces)?

I just build several pairs for the workshop coming up here in a couple of weeks and used my own design which almost certainly is the same as someone else's that I saw on the forum or elsewhere.... I used treated 2X6 for the legs, top and strongback (under the horse top and tied into the legs) plus a pair of 2X4 angle braces running slantwise between the legs.  Used a 15 degree miter on all legs top and bottom so everything fits well and has a pretty solid "stance" if that's the right term.  Went for fast and furious on these (only two weeks to get ready) so I used a nail gun rather than mortise and tenon (plan on doing that shortly to make a couple more pair of sawhorses for timber framing).

Sorry, didn't mean to go on so- let me know what you plan on that taper idea- getting power cords and air hoses stuck seems to take up way too much time when you're trying to build something (at least when I work...).

Thanks and Happy President's Day (whatever that is)!

Lj

[zopi]

Nahh..he wants to round off the ends of the top piece to help @#$% extension cords go around them...a good idea..in theory.

I hate extension cords...they exist to torment me...air hoses too... ;D

[moonhill]

In responce to Jim, and others in the shop knocking the timbers around and jarring others work, this is true.  With a one or two man crew it isn't much of a problem but add a third or fourth and it can be.  I haven't tried this but if you use ponies and light 6' bunks, in a row, to stop the transfer of motion to some where else, I could see it working.  I like everything all layed out at once to check for mistakes and orientation issues and what-not.  I can pile a lot of timber on my ponies and they hold up.  If everyone in the shop is calm and cool it should work out, you have to have a understanding with each other so as not to be irritated by the jarring.  This doesn't sound much like of an endorsement but ponies have my vote.  Oh, electrical cords?  What electrical cords.  Tim B.

[StorminN]

There was an article in one of the latest Mother Earth News magazines, with plans for building "trestle timber ponies"... they use 6x6's for the feet and 4x6's for the rest. They have the horizontal top beam and a horizontal trestle about halfway down the legs. I started building a pair, but haven't yet finished.

-N.

[Jim_Rogers]

See post #9 on first page.......

[shinnlinger]

Can some one explain to me the logic behind big heavy horses?  I have some big oak ones with interchangeable 4 ft and 8 ft tops they weigh a ton and I never use them.

These light weight ones can hold all the weight and aren't hard to move around.

[ljmathias]

I think the idea of building them like the post and beams to sit on them is more for "visual balance" than outright utility- it just looks better somehow to have heavy timbers sitting on heavy sawhorses... Anyway, yours look to me like the feet are spread fairly far apart- does this put a lot of force on the joints of the sawhorses to resist the spreading caused by the downward weight of the timbers?  I may be wrong- can't make out the details of yours with my computer resolution.

Lj

[shinnlinger]

Yeah,

My legs are spread so they will be stable...but I have a 1x6 or so holding it together.   I had input from a local TFer on the design(we thought about it for at least 10 minutes), and I think we got it about right on the angle and height.  It is stable, but not so wide you trip over it all the time and a good height for working 8x10's w/a chisel.

I might have glued and screwed the thing together, or maybe just screwed, or maybe air nailed it, I cant remember.

I have the pattern in the shop still and will post it if anyone has interest.  I slapped my together with white pine I had, which is obvously one of the worse choices for a horse, but they have held up fine to abuse.  Just make a few more than you think you will need, they come in handy.

Personally, Id rather save my energy to move beams around than sawhorses.

[witterbound]

I like my heavy horses because I can bar clamp shorter timbers I am working on to them, and the horses act like an anchor to give me something solid to work against.  For example, when I'm working on a brace, I clamp the brace to one of my horses, and it's solid for me to chisel or saw.  I think folks who do this for a living set up shop and they don't ever their horses.  It makes sense for them, as from time to time they often have a lot of timbers on their horses.  Hmmm, wonder if there's an OSHA angle??

[zopi]

  Hmmm, wonder if there's an OSHA angle??

Of course there is..but I bet it is an obtuse angle...

prolly have to paint them bright orange and have handrails all the way around, and you must wear a safety harness when
sitting on a timber...it might roll.  :D

[shinnlinger]

Witterbound,

That does make some sense to me,  you would have to clamp a windbrace to two light horses to get the same stability. 

By the way, I don't think you "heavy horse" people are idiots or anything, I am just trying to represent the "light horse" people.

Oh I measured my horses and they are about 2 ft tall and 40 inches wide at the base and 4 ft -5ft long.  The main cross peice also doesnt overhang the edges much at all to help reduce cord snagging.  I have found them to be about right for working timbers, but I am 6'4" so if you are shorter than that you might want them 20" tall or so

[StorminN]

Hey shinnlinger,

I think a big part of it is that a lot of people build the timber horses as their first "starter project"... that's why I'm doing them. I already have other "light" wood horses, but I wanted to see if I liked the timber work, and a small project like this seemed like a good start...

-Norm.

[witterbound]

shinnlinger,
I think everyone should make and use what work for them.  I first built, and used, 4 ponys.  I like them a lot, but found that they moved when I was working braces.  So then I then built my heavy horses.  I use both sets for different kinds of work. 

[Jim_Rogers]

Although, I designed the horse shown in Post #9 on the first page, I never have built any for myself.
But at the after school program that I teach, we had the students build some as an introduction to the timber framing process.
Plus we needed the horses to work on the 7x9x24 hemlock sills.
After the horses were constructed they were tested:



And it passed the strength test, and the stiffness test also. As this isn't a movie for utube you can't see me attempting to rock it from end to end, but that's what I'm trying to do up there.

Jim Rogers

PS. oh, yea, that's isn't me up there without my harness on, or safety railing.... in case osha is watching.....

[witterbound]

Jim, that's quite a picture!  I'm worried about your spotter, as it looks like he's wearing sandals.   Surely he's not.

[Jim_Rogers]

Yes, he is wearing sandals but he was just visiting; not doing any work with tools or timbers.
He was a former school committee member who was "just checking" on what was going on at the after school program that he had approved.
He was only there one or two afternoon seeing what the kids were up to.

Jim Rogers

[witterbound]

Sure he was Jim.   :D

[zopi]

I oughta airbrush some boots to look like sandals...just for these kinds of pictures...maybe some chainsaw chaps painted to look like bermuda shorts...

[Brad_bb]

**Just reposting the pic of my cribbing ponies now that I know how to post pics of FF.  thanks JIM!

I also built cribbing ponies per Steve Chappell's book.  Small and easy to move around, they don't take up much space in storage either.  You can sort of stack them too.  They are much lighter weight than the big heavy saw horses.  It can be done because you use two of your timbers across them to make the timber bed.  It seems most effecient to me.


PS.  Please tell me if I did this wrong.  I uploaded my pic to my FF gallery, then copied the address and put it between two image tags here. When I hit the "Upload or Insert Photo" it wasn't obvious how I was supposed to insert a photo that was already in my gallery.  So I assumed that I could copy the address.

[Jim_Rogers]

Looks like you did it right.....

[Dave Shepard]

I've started on a pair of Jim's saw ponies. I'm using all 6x6's, even for the legs. They will be 3' wide, 28" tall, with 24" feet. Here's a very bad pic of the first foot:




I'm using pine, it's what I've got handy. This is the first time I've used my chisels and slicks since I started using the ceramic polishing stone. They are DanG Sharp! ;D 8)


Dave

[Mooseherder]

Dave!
You started another project! :D
Nice start. ;D

[Dave Shepard]

I actually have more projects in the planning stages than actual projects. Most of my currently started projects run into a lack of money problem. I've got all the pieces for the horses ponies, so they should get finished. ;D


Dave

[Radar67]

My planned project list is rather large too Dave. My problem is not so much the money (although it helps to have plenty) as it is the time.

[shinnlinger]

Remind me again why you want to spend 40 hours making a set of horses that will make you slip a disc when you want to move it????

I'm playing devils advocate on this as if you want to do that it is obviously your perogative, but for a curious horse builder it may be good to spell out the pros and cons of heavy horses.  I am really not trying to be a complete @$$hole on this (but realize my opening remark puts me in that category....sorry).

Obviously, I think light is the way to go myself.  Save the heavy lifting and the fancy joints for the frame itself.  Some one said they liked a heavy horse so they could clamp a windbrace to it and it wouldn't move around.  Well I have done a few frames, and not once  have I been working up windbraces where there hasn't been at least an 8x8 handy to clamp braces to if you are worried about wiggling, which again, I heve never found to be a problem.

Now as to having a work of art as opposed to a slapped together junk for a horse, well I can see that argument and it does look good so far Dave.