Folding sawhorses and sawhorse designs.

gafftapegreenia

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In January or so, when I get some free time (hopefully), I want to build a nice full stable of folding sawhorses to replace our current junk. @Van @gafftaper and others, do y’all have a preferred design for ideal foldable sawhorses?
 
I used the design found in The Stock Scenery Construction Handbook in college, and they are by far the best I've ever used. Easy to build, easy to customize to height and width, light weight, and easy to carry.
 
I've got a drawings on my laptop. for horseys that are made out of 1x and cornerstones. The only thing I don't like about the design is they use a lot of hinges. Like 5 per horse.
I've got to spend some time on my lappy tonight making Christmas gifts I'll upload the drawings then.
 
are made out of 1x and cornerstones.
? Do those go with the keyblocks?

a nice full stable of folding sawhorses
I saw what you did there, stabel jenius.

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I dont have a great picture, but the shop I used to be at had some great ones. To be fair we used a CNC router to cut them, but they were one (or I guess 2) solid pieces of plywood with threaded inserts for all the bolts. Super light, real strong. We had squat, wide ones and then also had skinnier tall ones so you could have some variation of height as needed. Then the tops of most of them were wrapped with packing foam which protected surfaces and usually gave enough warning to stop if you were cutting through them or about to.
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I'm pretty sure it was posted in jest, but just in case someone doesn't understand that: those cheap Harbor Freight folding sawhorses are really, really cheap; the plastic is rather brittle, and the stays (in particular) quite easy to break. They will not hold up well at all in a professional shop; they don't even hold up all that well in my basement shop, though for the price one can't complain too much. The 350 pound rating is absolutely absurd; 35 pounds is perhaps more realistic with an appropriate safety factor.

I have a couple of folding metal sawhorses I got quite some time ago from Lee Valley Tools (they no longer have them for sale) that appear to be generally similar to these HICO Sawhorses and they are very sturdy and work nicely, though it's a bit finicky to set up and adjust the height. I wonder, once one totals up the cost of materials and one's time investment, if it's actually economical to build one's own folding sawhorses; I haven't actually run the numbers, even on the back of an envelope, so I can't really say one way or the other, but it seems like something that could well be not the smartest.
 
I built my set of 4 two whole old house renovations ago (1983) and still going strong. Similar to https://www.finehomebuilding.com/2011/03/10/building-sturdy-sawhorses with these modifications.

The 1 x 6 legs only slope out, not lengthwise, but would do that if doing it again (I think...)

The legs, stretchers, and gussets are all 1 x 6, all glued joints.

I'd plan for a sacrificial Homasote top on all four.

I built two short and two tall. On each pair of same height, the bottom stretcher is on the outside for one, as shown in article, and inside on the other.. In addition the 2x6 top of the one with the stretcher on the inside is shorter, and fits inside the gussets. This permits stacking without wedging.

The stretchers are all the same height on all 4 - convenient to store long lengths temporarily.

The heights and gussets are such that if you reverse stack the short pair, the stack - very sturdy because of gusset on 2 x 6 - are same height as the tall ones so end up with three. Used a lot as painters scaffold with a couple of 2 x 12 s. (I don't recall dimensions but I guess that says the shorter are 7" less - the 2 x 6 top and 1 x 6 gusset - and reason to slope legs one way only.)

I think the 4 stacked store as compactly as 4 folding and are sturdier.

Fine Homebuilding had a small book that was all sawhorse designs, a "gift" with a subscription long ago. Go to their site - over a 1000 hits on sawhorses in their search engine.
 
Did'nt find the files on my lappy last night. I guess I need to dig through my desktop at home. Sorry. Basically they are the same as what Josh posted above but made of 1x .
 
Super simple, very inexpensive (under $8 ea), stable, customizable and repairable - stackable just not foldable.

Just drive a couple screws in each leg (I recommend a 3" to 3-1/2" torx star drive as they're easier to remove later and generally stronger than a drywall screw) and you're good to go. If you plan to use them for "scaffolding" then you'll want to add a gusset or spreader to prevent the legs from splaying otherwise they're about as cheap & easy as they can be to make.
 

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I highly recommend 3/4" ply w/ weight relief or 1x. Nix the 2x4 styles- keep it light for the constant moving.

My current shop has ones made of 3 pieces, each 3/4" ply with weight relief cut out. They slot into each other so no hinges or hardware, and the can be taken apart and stored only 2 1/4" thick (plus layers of paint). Down-side is they only store nicely when disassembled. Just another option for ya.
 
I've built several plywood versions over the years and agree that the knock down versions are (or can be) lighter than the 2x4 however I always found that they tend to start twisting with changes in humidity. Caveat being that I used 1/2" & 5/8" vs 3/4", perhaps the larger lumber wouldn't. I also found that when moving them they tended to fall apart on me but that could have simply been my design ;-)

I highly recommend 3/4" ply w/ weight relief or 1x. Nix the 2x4 styles- keep it light for the constant moving.

My current shop has ones made of 3 pieces, each 3/4" ply with weight relief cut out. They slot into each other so no hinges or hardware, and the can be taken apart and stored only 2 1/4" thick (plus layers of paint). Down-side is they only store nicely when disassembled. Just another option for ya.
 
I haven't built them yet but have my eye on the fold flat sawhorses from Woodsmith plans, https://www.woodsmithplans.com/plan/fold-flat-sawhorses/ They are 3/4" thick when folded and can hang on the wall. They look CNC cut but you can make patterns from hardboard then whip out a bunch with a jigsaw and a pattern bit in your router.

If you google Shopnotes folding sawhorse, you'll get the cutting diagram for them but no dimensions.

Michael
 
Had a few open days last week which allowed me to get 20 folding horses built. My shopmates are thrilled.
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@gafftapegreenia
Those look great! Do you by chance have any kind of cost breakdown or any plans that you can share with future generations?

I’ll try to run some numbers later. I can tell you it took 5 sheets of ply and 100 hinges.
 
I'm looking to build a new stock of folding sawhorses based on the Stock Scenery Construction Handbook plans, and wondering what lessons other folks have learned so I don't have to learn them myself.

In the book, they're drawn 4'6" wide -this seems like the best size for stock use, but are there any other stock widths that folks have found to be indispensable? For construction materials should I stick with standard Broadway flat framing with 1x4s and 1/4" plywood corner gussets? Are there any other secrets or tricks anyone has found that aren't obvious until after the job's done?
 
Can’t say I have any major lessons to share. I can say that my original fleet that I made out of 3/4” birch ply (which we were getting for $55 a sheet wholesale at the time) have all held up these last three years. Despite a few saw cuts and a lot of paint drips I haven’t lost a single one.

I’ve probably made another 20 since then using whatever plywood we had at the time. I just noticed today that the lower stretcher on one single horse has cracked, someone probably stood on it. Also I think it was a poplar veneer ply or something else softer.

I don’t think you need to use real 1/4” ply, all my keystones are made from luan scraps, double sided on the joints and secured with wood glue and many 3/4” narrow crown staples.

I did make some stouter yet thinner sawhorses for our finisher to use in the spray booth and he loves them. Don’t recall the dimensions offhand tho, I think they’re maybe only 24” wide. He wants another set for our new downdraft booth, but I’ve run out of the huge stock of hinges we had and haven’t chosen a cost effective replacement yet.
 
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Thanks for the update. Glad to hear your horses are still happily galloping to this day. I'll be sure to update the board once ours are built!
 

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