BEST Adjustable Sawhorse with Interchangeable Tops

whether you're a carpenter or you just like to tinker on projects around the house eventually you're going to find you need a good solid pair of sawhorses there are countless different types of sawhorse designs and materials in fact i actually shared the free building plans to a set of folding diy wooden saw horses several months ago so make sure you check out that video if folding is your thing whether you build your own or you do what a lot of people do and you head to home depot and buy a pair i'm going to show you how to turn a basic pair of wooden saw horses into adjustable interchangeable sauces this video is sponsored by buildsomething.com and the home depot this is a really simple build project it's great for a beginner the only power tools you really need are a circular saw and a power drill an impact driver is nice but not necessary for this project i picked up a pair of 24 inch high burro brand saw horses whatever style of sawhorse you choose to use for this project it just has to be the kind with a horizontal top plate no more than a couple inches thick unfortunately the i-beam style sawhorse won't work for this the first thing i did was to mark the location for the holes that i needed to drill through the top plate of the sawhorse not catching every step don't worry i'm sharing the full free building plans over at buildsomething.com in addition to the building plans for this sawhorse as well as all the attachments you'll also find hundreds and hundreds of other free building plans if you're a diy or looking for some direction buildsomething.com is a great place to start i found the center between the legs and then measured about three and three-eighths inch from either end when you need to drill a large hole through a piece of material there are several types of drill bits that you can use from what i've seen these spade or paddle bits are usually the least expensive just make sure to hold two hands on the drill so it doesn't twist your wrist too much if it gets caught next it was time to bring in the star of the show three quarter inch pipe clamps technically you only need one end of the pipe clamp the end that has just the metal tabs and no handle i wish i could say i came up with the pipe clamp idea on my own but that is not true i originally saw them being used on an adjustable sawhorse in an article by woodsmith magazine written by brian nelson i'll leave a link in the video description so you can check it out for yourself if you're building a pair of these yourselves at this point it's really important that you measure the distance between the vertical portion of the pipe clamp ends i needed to make sure that it was at least between 24 and a half and 25 inches so that it would accommodate a pre-cut 24 inch length of steel unistrut unistra is a type of profiled steel that the sides come up and wrap around kind of like a c and then create little c's again on the ends this unique shape makes it very strong even at long lengths and prevents it from being able to bend easily when i lowered my unistrut in place on top of the pipe clamp tabs i realized that it was just a smidge too long i ended up needing to cut off about an eighth of an inch but at least my stupid mistake gave me a chance to try out a brand new tool i recently received the new ryobi hp compact cut off tool it's cordless with a brushless motor kind of similar to an angle grinder but much easier to hold with one hand my favorite features are the wire guide foot and the fact that you can adjust which way the wheel spins making this tool versatile for several different types of cutting with the unistrut trimmed and put back in place i began working on the cutting surface tray i began by marking and cutting a 2x4 an inch and a half short of the width of the top plate of the sawhorse while i was at it i cut a few more two by fours to the exact same length i'll be using those as inserts and i'll talk about that later in the video for each sawhorse i cut two lengths of 1x3 furring strip at the same length as the 2 by 4s i also cut two 5 inch long 1 by 3 end boards to assemble each tray i laid one of the two by fours horizontally on my work surface i then apply glue to the longer 1 by 3 pieces and attach them vertically to either side of the 2x4 i pre-drilled through the outside and secured everything together using 2-inch wood screws next i added the 5-inch long 1x3s to either end of the tray with the tray fully assembled i got one of those extra two by fours i had cut before and pressed it into the opening this board would function as a sacrificial board or the actual working surface of the sawhorse i placed the tray on top of the pre-assembled sawhorse and made sure to align the sides i was then able to transfer the center of the hole that i had drilled for the pipe onto the underside of the tray i lined a three-quarter inch gas pipe floor flange over the mark pre-drilled and secured the flange in place using one and one-quarter inch screws you notice those green tools that i'm using the drill and impact driver are also part of the new ryobi hp compact line of tools they both come with powerful brushless motors and they're about 30 smaller and lighter than traditional power drills and impact drivers if you want more information about ryobi's new hp line make sure you check out the link in the description box below i then tightened the 18 inch long lengths of pipe into each flange i slid a pipe clamp end upside down onto each pipe and then flipped the tray assembly over and began trying to insert it into the holes through the top plate i discovered the holes weren't perfectly aligned and so i asked my husband bryce to come over and lend me a hand the two of us were able to pretty easily get the pipes to slide easily through the holes in the top plate to make sure that the entire tray assembly wouldn't just pull off the sawhorse when i was moving it i made sure to add a three-quarter inch pipe cap to the end of each pipe i moved the unistrut once again on top of the pipe clamp tabs and used a pencil to transfer the location of two of the holes down onto the top plate of the sawhorse i then drilled a 7 16 inch diameter hole through each location the holes allowed me to feed a length of 3 8 inch diameter nylon rope up through the top plate of the saw horse and through the underside of the unistrut i flipped the ends of the rope over and inserted them in adjacent holes in the unistrut going downward i tied the ends of the rope in a knot and used a lighter to melt the nylon so it wouldn't continue to fray you can see we spent the night breaking in our new workshop even before it's done being built i think bryce was ready for me to turn off the lights and come to bed so he decided to come over and give me a hand at this point both saw horses were more or less finished so we began to work on some of the optional insert tops we began by drilling a one and one quarter inch diameter hole through a scrap piece of two by four we then cut the hole in half giving us two shorter lengths of two by four with semicircles notched out of the top we slid a one and one quarter inch length of pvc pipe over a red oak dowel and placed it in the notches this is the same technique i used a few years ago when i made out feed rollers for my planner and attached it to my double ended flip top workbench we go to bed yet what time is it about 20 minutes past too late oh yeah it's bedtime all right let's go [Music] if you look at the board as it sits inside the tray you'll notice at some point late in the night bryce had the idea that if we cut the ends of the insert boards at 45 degree angles it would create kind of a little handle and it would make it much easier to be able to remove the inserts by hand [Music] hands down the tool i get asked the most about in my videos is this little guy it's called a multi-mark from craig basically it's just this handy little slide rule measuring tool that makes it really easy to find exactly where i want to make my mark square to the edge of something it's lightweight super easy to use it's easy to tuck into my bags and for all my european friends out there you guys will be very happy to know that it also comes in metric measurements just on the back side it has a built-in level bubble on the back so you can make sure you're plumb or level on your surface and the slide rule is actually adjustable i can take it off and flip it 90 degrees and use it kind of as a t-square they only cost around 15 so it's something you can definitely have one in the shop one in your bags one in your truck i began working on the three other insert board ideas that i had for the first board i needed to drill quarter inch holes perfectly straight and add a specific depth a drill press would work well for this situation but since i don't have one instead i reached for my craig shelf pin jig i drilled three holes centered on the board evenly spaced apart i cut a handful of two and a half inch long dowels and then i dug through my makeup drawer actually i discovered a while back that a pencil sharpener or eyeliner sharpener actually works really well to shape the ends of small dowels i added a bit of wood glue to the pre-drilled board and inserted three spiked dowels on the next insert board i marked the center lengthwise and began using a forstner bit to drill 7 8 inch diameter holes cue the flying saucers [Music] so these little flying saucer guys are actually 5 8 inch diameter steel ball bearing casters they're really cool because unlike most casters they can seamlessly spin in 360 degrees i left a link in the description box for the ones that i used if you want to go check them out finally my last insert board idea is pretty straightforward this stuff is three inch wide neoprene weather stripping i got a roll of 25 feet for like 9 or 10 bucks and i'm going to put it on top of the solid boards to give me some grip the neoprene covered boards are probably the ones that i'm going to use to cut down material the most even if the thin neoprene tape gets cut into it should still work to grip things pretty well lastly we noticed there was a little bit of wobbling from the pipes when we raised and lowered the tray so we drilled through the clamps and drove a couple of screws into the top of the sawhorse no more wobbling after that you ready to see these bad boys in action i think what i like the most about this project is how customizable it is to everybody's individual needs for example let's talk about what i plan on using each insert for the neoprene is really grippy so you can use it to kind of hold your material in place if you don't want to use clamps honestly i can't turn it working great although they may look like it the spiked owls are not a torture device i designed this insert to be really helpful when i'm painting large items like a door or molding or something that spans across both saw horses basically they're built-in painters pyramids you guys always come up with fantastic ideas so i'm really curious what kind of inserts would you create for your sawhorse make sure to reach out in the comments section below the ball bearing casters are really great when you need to move big or heavy or large items around like if you need a spin around a piece of furniture or a sheet of plywood they go any direction you need them to [Music] the dowel rollers are one of the attachments that i'm most excited about these function as rollable outfeed support they're going to come really in handy when i'm using either my planer or my table saw after i designed and built my sawhorses i actually came across a youtuber named tim sway who built a couple of saw horses that are actually pretty similar so i recommend you go check out his video as well he has some great ideas i'll leave a link in the description box my husband and i are currently in the middle of building a modern custom house ourselves as well as a detached 1200 square foot workshop if you're curious what that's all about you can watch the entire building modern on a budget playlist by clicking here if you like other diy ideas make sure you check out this video make sure you're subscribed to the pneumatic datic channel so you don't miss what we're working on next and as always thanks for watching guys

Channel: Pneumatic Addict

Views: 281,197

Keywords: diy, woodworking, home improvement, storage, garage, organization, tools, easy DIY, how-to, ryobi, garage shelves, workbench, power tools, home ideas, home decor

Id: 0Nwsa45IE1s

Length: 14min 32sec (872 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 04 2020