Let's Talk Wood: Krenov's Sawhorses

It's about to get a little crazy here in the shop, but after two weeks off, I'm champing at the bit to get back at it. Usually this time off is spent on maintenance, and catching up on commissioned work.

Knowing that we had a couple of table making courses coming up, I knew we'd be in need of some sawhorses in the shop, to go along with this new bad boy: The bad-ass Festool TS 75... which will make cutting through thick slabs of lumber seem like we're cutting buttah!

A buddy of mine called to say that he'd found a stack of lumber for sale, so Denny and headed over with a trailer, and loaded up this load.

Sweet.

Most of the pile was Cherry, and even though there were some wonky boards, like this one,

I knew we'd be able to flatten some in order to make some badly needed sawhorses.

But not just ANY sawhorse - a James Krenov sawhorse.

After flattening the boards on the jointer, I squared up the stock and cut a few dados, thus creating the simplest of mortises. The dados were cut,

the boards ripped in half,

and then folded together - and - voila!

A perfect simple mortise.

I finished the day by gluing everything together.

In the morning, I cut the uprights and machined the tenon on the ends. Here's a down and dirty method for machining tenons.

It's a little hard on the blade, but they were already dull since it was the end of the session, so they were ready to be sent out for sharpening anyway.

The fit was tight and perfect, and everything was glued and assembled.

Krenov scalloped the bottom of his sawhorses, so I marked out the cuts, made the first cut on the tablesaw,

and then removed most of the waste on the bandsaw.

Cutting the top board (with notches) was a breeze, and you know what - these sawhorses lived up to their reputation of being super strong and super lightweight.