The Sippican Cottage Spiffy Sawhorse Saga

Alright, here is where I admit embarrassing things. As opposed to the other 2,874 entries on this website, where I only admit awkward and bewildering things. Before we start banging any nails, we’re going to take another detour, and get all logistical on you. We’re going to make two sawhorses. You see, we’re going to be handling lots of long pieces of lumber, eights, twelves, and fourteen-footers, and they’re a bear to work with when they’re on the ground. We’ll save our backs and get them 24″ plus off the ground, and work on them right where they’re being used, instead of manhandling them into my shop and re-enacting a Three Stooges episode when we swing them around in there.

So, you’re wondering, what’s so embarrassing about building sawhorses? If you’re a devotee of Sippican Cottage, you know they’re going to be rudely fashioned and just about usable, just like everything I make. That holds no terrors for me to admit. No, it’s the timing of this little interlude that reddens my cheeks like Ben Nye would. I promised I’d show a reader how to make a real carpenter’s sawhorse a while back, and I’m just getting to it.

I promised on June 3rd, 2005.

No, really, I was blogging back in 2005, back before they called it blogging. I offered a daily dose of intellectual pablum appended to a website I kept to sell furniture I made. I posted a picture of my sawhorses, and someone emailed me and asked me to write down how to make them. I said sure, I’ll get to it.

I promised to post the dimensions again in 2008. Didn’t do it. I think I promised again in 2012. Fell down on the job. We’ve morphed seamlessly from embarrassing to mortifying at this point, but I’m pretty sure I promised again in 2017, and 2018, but I’m not certain of that, or of very much else.

But it’s a long road that has no turning. Here’s how to make Sippican’s Spiffy Sawhorses

I’ve got pitchas to help you out. They’re not really difficult to make, but they’re really sturdy and useful.

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