Title just about says it all. I realize people’s heights vary. The question is geared towards what height do you want your sawhorses at?
Knee high, waist high, chest high? (or somewhere in between).
jt8
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Replies
WRIST WITH ARMS AT MY SIDES... OR 38"
proud member of the FOR/FOS club...
Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming
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how tall are you ??
Mine are 30" I think.
I cant imagine trying to use a portable table saw on a set of horse 38" high!
EricI Love A Hand That Meets My Own,
With A Hold That Causes Some Sensation.
tall and very long arms..
proud member of the FOR/FOS club...
Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming
WOW!!! What a Ride!
I have several sets. They range in height from 24" to 36".
Cutting is usually done on the 32" ones.
James DuHamel
He who dies with the most toys.... Still dies!
"For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his soul?" MARK 8:36
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put your thumb in the middle of your lower back and that is the height your work bench and saw hores should be -- all the best - Dudldy
I was taught that workbench height is the height at which your arm is fully dropped but your hand is held horizontal from the wrist, your palm would be resting on the bench top. It works well for me.
I have horses ranging from 18" on up to 36". It depends on what you're doing.
I was taught it should be something else that rests horizontal on the bench if the height is correct but I realise it's a case of "Other countries, other ways"!
IanDG
If we're talking shop here it depends on if you can even get whatever it is of yours to "rest" while it's horizontal. With me it's never at rest when it's horizontal, and only part of the time when even I'm horizontal, at which time I suppose it would be plumb or in that ballpark. It is then that the bench is at the perfect height for working on your wood.
take off the high heels? yer calfs are sweet without the CFM boots..Gunner said so.
Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
" Let behind the eyes, that which one talks"
Rumi....
say what..
you makin' a pass at me...
proud member of the FOR/FOS club...
Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming
WOW!!! What a Ride!
Don't mean to bud in here but does anyone have plans for a good pair of knock down saw horses? Saw the article in the last issue but those were permanent.
available at Menards for something just under $20 each
View Image
Edited 1/29/2005 3:57 am ET by Shoeman
works out to 38" fer me...
proud member of the FOR/FOS club...
Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming
WOW!!! What a Ride!
I bought a pair of the new Stanley FatMax sawhorses.
Each leg is adjustable. I have not used them too much but so far I like them.
-Mark
It depends what you use them for.
I have a set that are about 20-22". They work fine fro cielings and crowns with a plank running across them. I can also load them with half a bunk of lumber to cut for use...
i also made up a set of four at 36" high to do a special cieling job and they became my sopecial horses. But I later cut them down to about 30 or 32". Work height is comfortable at 36" but set up a chop saw on them and then the working height is suddenly more like 40". Same if you pile material on them or plop a TS across them.
A general rule is that for tedious work, like tying flies or trim cutting, you want the wiork surface higher, butfor haevier work like kneading bread dough, you want it lower. Bakers tables are usually 28 - 30"
All this depends on you and your height, of course.
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back breakers..
proud member of the FOR/FOS club...
Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming
WOW!!! What a Ride!
Those of mine you were cutting over were the 32" ones, with the workstation, probably up to about 36" or so.I assume your ouch was for the 22" ones, but add a half bunk of 2x4's or plywood to them and you are still cutting starting out at around 38"
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
I thought I had used the 32's and I thought them to be a mite short...
proud member of the FOR/FOS club...
Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming
WOW!!! What a Ride!
Think mine are in the 36-38 range, but then again im 6'6".
I want to be able to put my knee on the material to hold it, and be able to reach across a 4x8 sheet without climbing up on the sheet. 24" is good for me. I also like the legs to splay out wide 20°, so if I hit them when loading, they don't tip over.
Beat it to fit / Paint it to match
John , Ive heard and been a part of big arguements over this issue. I dont know if it will ever be settled. I put it in the same category with relegion and politics.
Tim Mooney
Ok, here's a question...
Sawhorse leg... 70 degree cut at the top, 20 degree at the bottom.
What length do I cut the long side to, to obtain 34 inches height when the top of the leg is at the top of the sawhorse ?
The person you offend today, may have been your best friend tomorrow
Sawhorse leg... 70 degree cut at the top, 20 degree at the bottom.
What length do I cut the long side to, to obtain 34 inches height when the top of the leg is at the top of the sawhorse ?
Ahhh, the things that people think of at 2AM... I think Luka was having a geometry or trig flashback.
jt8
Our lives improve only when we take chances -- and the first and most difficult risk we can take is to be honest with ourselves. -- Walter Anderson
Edited 2/2/2005 9:50 am ET by JohnT8
So you don't know the answer either ?;)
The person you offend today, may have been your best friend tomorrow
Well I assume your angle from ground to bottom of the leg isn't 20 degrees, cuz that would about 3X as long as tall. :)jt8
Our lives improve only when we take chances -- and the first and most difficult risk we can take is to be honest with ourselves. -- Walter Anderson
36-3/16"
You formed a right angle triangle ?My head hurts thinking even that much about math right now. Let alone 2 inna am...
The person you offend today, may have been your best friend tomorrow
>> You formed a right angle triangle?Yep. I couldn't figure out exactly what you meant by the cutting angles, so I made the same assumption as JohnT8, that you wanted the leg at a 20 degree angle from the vertical or 70 degrees from the horizontal. So the right triangle has a vertical side of 34", your specified height, an undetermined horizontal side, and a hypotenuse of the length of the leg, a 20 degree angle at the top, and a 70 degree angle at the base. The 34" vertical side is adjacent to the 20 degree angle at the top. The cosine of an angle is equal to the adjacent side divided by the hypotenuse. So the equation is:cos (20) = 0.93692621 = 34 / length of leg (ridiculous number of digits indicates use of calculator)Rearrange the terms and you get:length of leg = 34 / 0.93692621 = 36.18204426 =~ 36.1875Of course that's just the mathematical length. Depending on the actual shape of the leg, you might have to start with a slightly longer board to get the right result.That also only accounts for the splay in one dimension. If you want the legs to splay 20 degrees in both dimensions, the leg needs to be 39-3/4". [Edit: should be 38-1/4.] Again, that's only the wireframe length. An actual leg with actual width and thickness may need to be a little longer, depending on how you cut it.
Edited 2/2/2005 6:15 pm ET by Uncle Dunc
ROFLOL
Ouch, my brain hurts.
Simple...
Sawhorse leg. 2x4 (Ok, technically what is it now ? 1.5x2.75 ???)
70 degree cut at the top, so it goes up against the cross member of the sawhorse, and sticks out at an angle.
20 degree cut on the bottom in the opposite direction so the leg sits fairly even on the ground.
Here, I drew a purty pitchure...
View Image
Yeesh, I coulda already cut one er a couple a hunnert, and figured it out by now.
;)
The person you offend today, may have been your best friend tomorrow
Luka,It's just like cutting a rafter. Your top cut is 70°. So that's like saying your rafter would have a 33/12 pitch.With your 34" height that you want with a Construction Master you can do this.70 [Pitch]34" [Rise]Press [Diag] Returns = 36-3/16" (Length of Horse Leg)Press [Run] Returns = 12-3/8"View your Horse leg as a rafter and the 2x4 you nail it into is the ridge. Your top plumbcut cut would be cut at 70° and the bottom level cut would be cut at 20° as you have in your drawing.It's nothing but a Triangle a Run, Rise and Hypontenuse.I guess I look at everything as if they were rafters and I'm just crazy...........Joe Carola
I used to spend hours figuring that crap out.It took me so long because I am math phobic.Simple stuff that I can see any day, like angle degrees, etc, I have no problem with. But when you have to start mixing and matching numbers, my brain goes south.I am severely dyslexic. Somehow I taught myself to read and write the way I do, by using the same part of my brain that recognizes the individual parts of art, and puts them together. I read and write like doing art. A sentence or word that is "out of proportion" sticks out to me like a face that is out of proportion.But I never did do that for math. If I apply myself, I can do quite well. Even stumped the highest level math teacher in high school. But left alone, man, my brain just scrambles.I haven't had to do it for years. I didn't want to do it now, and would have simply started cutting long, and kept cutting until I got it right, this time. But thought, what the heck... ;)Actually, to be honest... Don't tell anyone, but I used to cheat rafters sometimes, on paper with graphics.It was easier to do if I cut paper and moved it around to do what I wanted. LOL
The person you offend today, may have been your best friend tomorrow
>> ... I used to cheat rafters sometimes, on paper with graphics.
That's how everybody used to do it. I saw an article in Scientific American once about how archaeologists found a site in southern France where a Roman temple builder had laid out his facade on the pavement in front of the building. You better believe nobody was doing any complicated square roots in Roman numerals.
Then somebody invented framing squares, and then slide rules, and then calculators, and then special purpose calculators like the CM.
The only problem with doing it graphically is that it's a lot harder to hit an exact angle without a calculator or trig tables or something, if an exact angle is important.
Did I already mention that my brain hurts ?And now yer trying to hurt my feelings as well, by claiming I am a little behind the times...Yeah, well, yer momma wears combat boots !;)
The person you offend today, may have been your best friend tomorrow
Yeah, well, yo' momma so big if she wanted to wear army boots she couldn't bend over to put 'em on.
Edited 2/3/2005 9:41 pm ET by Uncle Dunc
ROFLMAOI needed that laugh.:)
The person you offend today, may have been your best friend tomorrow
>> I guess I look at everything as if they were rafters and I'm just crazy...Makes perfect sense if you're a framer. And if your Construction Master gets stepped on, you can just call it a 36:12 pitch (71.6 degrees) and carry on with Pythagoras.
"Makes perfect sense if you're a framer. And if your Construction Master gets stepped on, you can just call it a 36:12 pitch (71.6 degrees) and carry on with Pythagoras."For Luka's horse you mean 33/12 pitch at 70°Joe Carola
No, if I had to do it without a calculator (or framing square, slide rule, etc.), I'd stick with 3 over 1 to simplify the math.
That's what I figured you meant, so I'll stick with my first answer, 36-3/16". The thing is, IMHO, the drawing is mislabeled. What you've really got there is a 20 degree angle at the top of the leg and a 70 degree angle at the bottom.
Yer cutting from the wrong side of the board, boy. Yer gunna get hurt doing that !;)
The person you offend today, may have been your best friend tomorrow
Jeff,
Not to fry your brain but.....you are better off putting a bevel on the top rail of the horses ( I use a 2x6, with the 6 horisontal) and cutting a slight compound mitre at the tops and the bottoms of the legs.
My legs splay both ways, and are crossed braced and diagonally braced.
I can post a pic tomorrow if you want.
I stayed out of the horse thing here, I feel blessed to have been shown how to properly construct real horses. All the horses I have seen here are a joke in my opinion.
4 of my horses will hold up a compact car, I would bet $1000.00 on it any day.
giddy ap!!
EricI Love A Hand That Meets My Own,
With A Hold That Causes Some Sensation.
So post the picture already, what are you waiting for ?:)I used to do sawhorses without even thinking about it.Been too long. So I wussed out, and decided to ask here while I am still just thinking about making them. he he heI'll make the first cut after I fix the chop saw.Can't find any brushes for my old dewalt cat#7717 10" chop saw...Gonna take the brush and holder to a local ace hardware that carries generic brushes and such...I have an old boat anchor of a makita chopsaw, but I don't want to unbury it's heavy arse and lug it out just for this. I suppose I could just cut them by hand.But hey, you justify fixing your favorite toys, er, I mean tools, your way, and I'll justify it mine.;)The dewalt has a brake on it. And it weighs about a quarter what the makita does.I just got it back a while back from it's several year stint of building wheelchair ramps every weekend. I loaned it out for that, and they used it mercilessly for almost 6 years for that. I got it back because one of the brushes is totally gone. I'll have to tighten it up in a few other ways, but what's a bit of tender loving care between a man and his favorite chopsaw ?I finally decided to fix it up when I got a blade from Doug Upah, that will be perfect for it...:)
The person you offend today, may have been your best friend tomorrow
Lika,Before they came out with Great white Saw Horses I made my own out of 2x4's with the legs at 34" just with square cuts top and bottom and then a 2x4 or 6 on edge with a 2z4 nailed on the bottom to make a T with the legs nailed in about 6" from the ends and then small 2x4's under the bottom of the 2x4 and that's it. These horses can hold up a house trust me no need for any angles. I've stack tons of rafters on these over the years and not one ever broke and they take 5 minutes to make.Joe Carola
That's EXACTLY how I used to do it !Only I laid a 2x6 flat across the top of all that.Sometimes I would set the legs high enough that the inside corners were about even with the top of your 2x6 there. Then cut the tops off real quick with a handsaw laid flat along the top of the 2x6. Then add the last 2x6 on top, flat.I thought I'd try a bit more finesse this time. LOL
The person you offend today, may have been your best friend tomorrow
Laying a 2x6 across the top ......did you ever cut any nails.....;-)Joe Carola
Yes.They invented carbon tipped blades because of my sawhorses.
The person you offend today, may have been your best friend tomorrow
So post the picture already, what are you waiting for ?
Light!!.............and tomorrow, and I need to dl irfanview. I guess I didn't remember to save that when I wiped my hard drive a few weeks ago.
Unless you LIKE 389kb pics???
Didn't think so.
EricI Love A Hand That Meets My Own,
With A Hold That Causes Some Sensation.
Details details...Next yer gonna need a camera too.Yeesh.
The person you offend today, may have been your best friend tomorrow
Here ya go Jeff,
2x6, 5/4x3 spruce ( or maybe 1x4 treated) and 5/8 or 3/4 plywood.
Compound bevel at the tops and bottoms of the legs and the rest id easy.
If you're interested I could give you spec's. They're light, somewhat stackable, and will last about 5 years or so if you are nice to them.I Love A Hand That Meets My Own,
With A Hold That Causes Some Sensation.
Now that is a good set of sawhorses.I can get the only specs I need, from the pic, but I appreciate the offer.I think I am going to end up just hacking something together like I used to do. But this pic, and some others, have given me some ideas that might have me taking a few minutes to actually think about it first. LOLI may hack together a set like I used to. Like what Framer showed. But then I'll take the time in a bit to make some nicer ones. It's not like they are going to end up being thrown around on jobsite after jobsite...:)
The person you offend today, may have been your best friend tomorrow
"I may hack together a set like I used to. Like what Framer showed. But then I'll take the time in a bit to make some nicer ones. It's not like they are going to end up being thrown around on jobsite after jobsite..."They're just a set of horses that can hold up a house not a piece of furniture......;-)Joe Carola
Edited 2/4/2005 7:00 am ET by Framer
PS - The length I gave in msg. #29 for a leg splayed in both dimensions was wrong. It should be 38-1/4".
OLD POST
36 3/4" with a 20° cut on top and bottom.