Japanese Sawhorses
Sturdy designs in two sizes excel on the floor and on the benchtop.
I can’t remember where I first saw a Japanese planing beam on trestle horses, but I do remember my first thought: “I gotta make a pair of those!” Having grown up around wobbly A-frame sawhorses made from 2x4s and festooned with paint spatters, bent nails, and errant sawkerfs, I thought those trestle horses seemed so sturdy, so clean, so intentional. I make them with drawbored mortise-and-tenons, which add another step to the build but provide extra solidity in joints that will see a lot of stress over the years. Because these heavy-duty horses have myriad uses, referring to them as sawhorses sells them short. I prefer to be more accurate: They are workhorses.
The design of the low horses stems from the fact that most Japanese woodwork is done while sitting. I rarely work on the floor, but I use low horses all the time on the benchtop. They elevate whatever I am working on above the fray of tools and shavings that accumulate on my bench. In the years since I made my first pair, I’ve been recommending them to all of my woodworker friends. I’ll tell them that these are essential, ‘what-did-I-do-before-I-had-these?’ tools; but it isn’t until I make them a pair that they really see what I mean—and often go on to make more themselves.
When I made my first pair of workhorses, I built them with what I had lying around—Douglas fir construction lumber—figuring they would be the test run for a more serious pair made of oak or walnut. But I never looked back. Douglas fir’s strength, weight, and sturdiness (not to mention low cost) made it ideal, and I’ve used it for every pair of full-size horses I’ve made since. But whatever wood you choose, they’ll deliver a lifetime of use. To determine a comfortable work height for your horses, measure from the floor to the bottom of your closed fist. This gives you a good height for sawing, planing, and the like.
The low horses are a design I continually fiddle with. I have five pairs now, and they’re constantly in use. I’ve made them from different woods, in several sizes, always making tweaks to the design in a quest to find the mythical sweet spot. I built this pair with a full-sawn Port Orford cedar 2×4, which gave me a stouter, taller set than the others.
A true workhorse
When I made my first pair of workhorses, I built them with what I had lying around—Douglas fir construction lumber— figuring they would be the test run for a more serious pair made of oak or walnut. But I never looked back. Douglas fir’s strength, weight, and sturdiness (not to mention low cost) made it ideal, and I’ve used it for every pair of full-size horses I’ve made since. But whatever wood you choose, they’ll deliver a lifetime of use. To determine a comfortable work height for your horses, measure from the floor to the bottom of your closed fist. This gives you a good height for sawing, planing, and the like.
From Fine Woodworking #265
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Comments
I had been thinking about building a pair of saw horses but all models I saw were clunky or cumbersome to build. These japanese horses are very nice set of horses. I will build these when summer rolls in. Thanks for the article.
I just finished building a pair of these and they turned out beautiful. I used douglas fir 4x4s for most everything and then simple 2x4s for the cross bars. I don't have a hollow chisel mortiser so instead of square pegs I used oak dowels. I highly recommend building a pair of these.
My first sawhorse builds were copies of James Krenov’s sparse design in one of his early books. They are light, sturdy and store out of the way.
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