Sturdy Sawhorses

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Materials List

2 2-by-4 12 feet long
1 2-by-6 8 feet long
1 2-by-2 4 feet long
1 20-by-48-inch piece of ¾-inch plywood
124 deck screws 2 inches long
8 deck screws 3 ½ inches long
8 deck screws 4 ½ inches long

All lumber should be construction grade or better, dry and untwisted. Pieces of 2-by-4 left over from the legs or 2-by-6 left over from the beams can be ripped into 1 ½-inch wide strips (2-by-2s are actually 1½ inches square in cross section) and used instead of 2-by-2 if you are able to do the necessary sawing.

You don’t have to be a woodworker or framing carpenter to appreciate the pleasing utility of a great pair of sawhorses. These workmates offer a stable base for projects as diverse as painting the shed’s soffits, creating a temporary buffet table, or just cutting a few boards with a hand-held circular saw. Easy as it is to build a stout pair of horses, there are plenty of poor and even downright dangerous examples out there. The main reason for this is that building solid sawhorses requires cutting wood at precise angles, which isn’t difficult but can be confusing.

I designed these sawhorses using what I think are the best features of two other sets I have been using for years around my place. This set is used most often for stacking many hundreds of pounds of hardwood lumber, as I sort through boards looking for just the right piece for a particular project. Supporting the weight of dozens of boards requires very sturdy sawhorses, so I chose to build these horses with deck screws, ¾-inch plywood and 2-by-4 and 2-by-6 construction lumber.

The length of the beams (horizontal working surface), the distance between two legs in a pair (stance) and the height of the horses can be tailored to suit the purpose and size of the user. Instructions for a pair of horses 30 inches high, with 40-inch beams and a 21½-inch stance are presented here. The completed sawhorses weigh about 20 pounds each.

Construction notes

All parts of all screws should be at least 1½ inches below the top edge of the sawhorse’s beam to safely use them as a saw platform.
A comfortable sawhorse working height for many uses (handsaw and circular saw cuts, etc.) can be established by measuring the distance from the floor to the knuckles of your closed fist.

Stance determines how easily the sawhorses will tip and how much the sawhorse legs will be in the way of the user’s feet. If you decide to change the height of your horses, I suggest that you modify the stance to about two-thirds the height.

Height, length, stance and the dimensions of the legs and beams can be changed without changing the procedure for layout or the way the sawhorses are fastened together. Just be sure that the beam is long enough, so there is room to fasten the braces to it.