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My sawhorses are 29" tall: the feet are 16" long and the legs are spaced 19" apart. All the pieces are 1-1/4" x 2-3/4", but use these measurements as guidelines only.
The sawhorse pieces don't have to be 2-3/4" wide, they
can be 3" or 2-5/8" wide. What's important is that
all the pieces are the same width, since working with identical
widths and lengths saves set-up time and minimizes measuring
mistakes. The heights of your sawhorses can vary, so choose
a height that suits your storage space, such as under the
wing of your table saw or assembly bench. Half-height sawhorses
come in handy for supporting large projects, so plan on building
a couple sets of them with exactly the same dimensions but
with a final height of 17".
To build your herd of sawhorses, first rip and crosscut all
pieces for all sawhorses to rough dimensions. At each step
in the process, laminate the rough-cut strips of plywood together
to create a sawhorse part. The parts will then be cut to final
widths and lengths to clean up any misalignments that occurred
during gluing. This is the most efficient way to produce a
clean-edged lamination of consistent width.
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| Leg details |
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Bulk clamping of legs. |
To start construction, laminate the two pieces of wood together
to get the desired dimension of each leg and top support.
Don't forget to laminate one long piece of wood and one shorter
piece of wood to create the long lap joint at the bottom of
the sawhorse. Make sure the lap joint is 3" long, and
that the shorter of the leg pieces creates a nice square shoulder
on the laminated leg. The legs and top supports can all be
clamped together in one batch to reduce the number of clamps
needed and to evenly distribute the clamping pressure. Take
care to clean any squeeze-out off the lap joint of the legs
to ensure a flush fit to the feet at that joint. After the
glue is dry, cut the legs, top supports and stretcher pieces
to final widths and lengths.
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