Heirloom-quality sawhorses that don’t require nails, screws, or glue? In this video, the Samurai Carpenter demonstrates how to build them, and what tools to use.
If you can get past his goofball shtick, the Samurai Carpenter’s videos offer some great tips and techniques. He’s a great craftsman, and he knows a lot about tools. He also knows how to build useful benches and a pretty sweet set of sawhorses, as you’ll see in this video.
The first minute consists of an overview of a handmade toolbox, which doesn’t have much to do with the sawhorses. So it’s worth skipping to about 1:20 when you’ll see a picture of the sawhorses; at 1:35 he begins actually making them.
The horses are made out of Douglas fir, but he doesn’t cut into the stock without a careful plan. He starts by creating templates out of ¼-in. Douglas fir door skin material. There’s some table-saw technique around 3:25, when he’s cutting tenons, that we don’t recommend (it made me cringe; you might want to look away).
He does a particularly good job explaining how to make through-tenons at 4:30, which you’ll see assembled at 5:30 and 6:00.
