A Gallery of Boatbuilders’ Favorite Sawhorses
Because boatbuilders can be iconoclastic and also adept on-the-fly problem-solvers, the sawhorses they develop tend to be as individualistic as they are themselves. Sometimes, it seems, all their sawhorses have in common is four legs—and even that’s not always true, since a “sawhorse” with legs on only one end makes a nice bunk for a boat to lean against while it’s on the hard. A close look at sawhorses that seasoned boatbuilders choose nevertheless shows a few common characteristics, and five variations are presented on the following pages.
Height differences are one characteristic. Jim Tolpin, the author of the article about western style handsaws in the March/April 2013 issue of WoodenBoat (No. 231), points out that the height of a sawhorse depends on how tall its user is—just as the length of the saw itself does. Other sawhorses have to be tall enough to serve as outfeeds for power tools or as extensions for workbenches. Still others are low for maximum stability. What height is “right”? It’s up to the builder to decide, based on the particular need that arises.
Some sawhorses are heavily built. One reason for this might be to safely take the weight of a heavy boat, set up on sawhorses for a season’s maintenance. Another might be to provide a very stable platform for ripping long stock. Harry Bryan describes one (shown above) that is solid enough to be fitted with a heavy vise when the job is outside the shop itself.
Boatbuilders favor a horizontal top piece to assure a broad bearing surface. It’s common, also, to see pieces of rigid foam insulation taped around the top piece to provide padding. Most builders wouldn’t use sawhorses for long-term storage of wood; instead they’d use stickered stacks to assure many support points close together, to minimize bending and warping.
There aren’t any formal plans for the sawhorses shown here. Some commercial plans can be found in Internet searches, along with premade brackets like those shown later in this article. But most of the time, the best sawhorse is one built by the boatbuilder himself to fit a clearly identified purpose. From that starting point, the variety really does seem infinite.