On Mon, 6 Jul 2009 05:49:54 -0700 (PDT), Andy Dingley
wrote:

On 6 July, 12:41, T i m wrote:

Any idea if any of the sheds do the 'knock down' brackets you can use
to make a folding (well, take_down) sawhorse please?

They used to once, I had a set (the orange steel folders), gave them
away as not worth the trouble.

I also have the black / yellow plastic jobbies and whilst certainly
not rigid are currently in the garden happily supporting 2 x 8' x 6" x
6" x 1/4" steel gate posts I'm preparing. Not 'nice' to hand saw on
though granted.

It's easy to make trestles, and easy to make stacking ones. Once you
have a couple or more trestles then they take up no more space stacked
than they do folded, so why go for folders with the risk of
wobbliness?

I agree, for workshop use and I have a lovely pair I remember making
from flat pack years ago that have served me well so far.

My take on trestles:

* Thick tops (extra deep rail) with no metal in them nearer the
surface than the depth of your circular saw. Then just cut through the
things carelessly. This makes many tasks far easier, doesn't wear the
trestles out as quickly as you expect and you can always fix them in a
few years.

Yup. Mine are showing a few battle scars (saw cuts, drill holes, paint
and weld burns etc).

* Stacking is most easily done by making them shorter by the leg
length (in sets of 3 or 4), not bu complicated nesting geometries.
They just don't need to all be the same length.

Understood.

* You can't have trestles that are too strong, or too stiff. Ply side
panels is the easiest way to achieve stiffness.

Agreed. Nothing better to work on.

* Folding isn't worth it.

* If you need them car portable, go for steel instead. Buy Aldi's.

I'll look at Aldi's but in this case I think I'm still going to try
the brackets because this isn't actually to make a sawhorse (although
your points above still apply) but a shaving horse. Daughter is
interested in doing some hand carving (see Frosts tool enquiry ^^) and
a shaving horse seems to be one of those things that goes with the
bodger / bush craft thing (she currently an apprentice Tree Surgeon
hence the connection and easy access to raw materials etc).

I have found various d-i-y shave horse styles and plans and they range
for very rustic (raw tree sections inc bark etc) to highly
'engineered' versions but none would break down well enough to fit in
the boot of her Ka. ;-)

eg http://www.greenwoodworking.com/shavehighres.jpg

So ... I though that even though these brackets may not be perfect I
feel the forces involved are generally between shaver and object
rather than object and ground etc?

In any case this might be just a Mk1 and if she doesn't follow it
though then I've got myself some bits to make a couple more saw horses
if / when I need them. ;-)

Cheers, T i m.