Carpentry,, Questions,,, and Answers,,!

[CADplans]

I will admit, I am easily lost when it comes to carpentry,, Give me a torch, and a welder,, and I feel at home,,

Well, I still need to drive a nail, occasionally, (AND , I usually select the WRONG nail :laughing: )

I am lost around a circular saw, but, recently, I finally watched some YouTube videos,, and learned about that saw,, a little.

So, I thought I would start a thread, hopefully to get some carpentry answers when I am lost,,
and also,
have a thread where I could share some stuff that I find that does not seem to be common knowledge,,

FIRST, my first question,, what is the right size for a set of saw horses?
I have two sets, both made of steel, and both seem too big.

The first set is close to 6 feet long, and the horizontal part is 6 inch wide flange beam.
The other set is made out of square tube, but, they are still about 5 feet long,

If I make a new set of saw horses, how long should the horizontal part be?
4 feet seems like it would match many sheet materials, but, 4 feet still seems to be unwieldy,,

Is there a rule of thumb on saw horse dimensions?

Please help a guy that was only trained to weld,,,:confused2:

 

[MossRoad]

I have had a set of saw horses that is 24" wide for about 30 years and I've never had any problems holding 4' sheets on them.

 

[bcp]

I like 4 feet wide to make it easy to cut plywood lengthways.

Bruce

 

[tallyho8]

My saw horses are 36" wide, made out of 3/4" EMT conduit, fold up, and have served me well.

 

[4570Man]

I don’t think there’s any standard on sawhorses. Most of them are built from scrap lumber. My personal requirement is a wood top that’s nail free so you can cut across it. Here’s my favorite pair of saw horses I’ve ever had. I don’t like fixed ones because they’re to hard to transport. These are the only folding ones I’ve had that are sturdy and they offer the freedom to make them as wide or short as you want. I had a set mad out of channel iron that I never used and sold. You could have set a loaded dump truck in them but they were too heavy.

 

[spitter]

What 4570 said no to carpenters built alike no to horses built alike. you want a horse that you could rip a sheet of plwood in half and work on comfortably . buy those metal hinged horse braces that you screw 2x4s into to make a quick horse and try out different hights to see what works best for you . I have 6 or 8 different hight sets for projects I have going on my best set by far is my sheetrock horses [walboard brand ] made out of aluminum adjustable hight from 12" to 4' with extendo legs they where $600 for the pair but worth every penny use them every weekend and they make a great work platform.:drink:

 

[woody]

I looked at a youtube video a couple days ago I found interesting on saw horses.

 

[Richard]

I'd love to have your horses! My wife is always working on projects (usually painting). Might be boards, might be shutters, might be dead bodies for all I know..... Many times, we have taken two saw horses, set them maybe 10 feet apart, put two boards across them and use THAT as a 10' wide saw horse so she can lay things out as she wants.

 

[s219]

I"d say 3' is a good size for a general purpose saw horse. Folding up is a bonus. Put an additional sacrificial piece of wood on the top that you can easily replace after it gets scored up from cutting.

 

[Egon]

You make them to dimensions and styles that serve your purpose. A sacrificial top cross board is nice to have.



A three leg saw horse made to hold a worktop.