One of the biggest time-sucks in many tradespeople’s days is setup, breakdown, and transport of tools.
Taken individually, the elements of slow setups and breakdowns—never mind inefficient setups (however, check out Manny Silva’s sanity-inducing site-built work table)—are hard to identify because it’s the seconds inside the minutes that are draining away, like a slow leak in a tire of time.
Taken cumulatively, however, those single things heap up into a Pike’s Peak of wasted time. To make matters worse, we get used to it. Messy vans. Disorganized trailers (guilty), too tired to put stuff away so it gets piled up (double guilty). Pick-up trucks that need to be tarped or unloaded (guilty here too).
Quick leg release and non-sequential fold-up add a little bit of speed to the front and back of deployment.
Now, I’m not saying the Bora Tool Speedhorse is the single key to no wasted motion, but it looks like it could help.
Also, I realize its hero function is on site, but look how nicely it folds up. And, as far as I can tell, it folds up into a cube. (What’s really cool is that if I wanted to confirm that before purchase, Bora has a hyperlink on the product page that enables me to do just that. You too. )
Cube-like (read about my preference for a cube vacuum cleaner here) means that if you have two Bora Speedhorses, you can nest them neatly in the bed of the truck , van, workshop, and so on. They can be stored on a shelf in your utility body. Speedhorse even has a carry handle.
The PM-4500 Speedhorse, according to Bora:
- Deploys 30x faster than conventional sawhorses
- Each unit can support 200 pounds more than the competitors (1,500 pounds)
- Non-sequential leg-folding—no need to remember which legs to fold first. Time-saver
- 18 pounds
- Working height 31.5 inches (unless you add 2-bys and plywood—and you should!)
- 45 inches long, 3 ¼ inches wide
- $79 each
