In woodworking, a saw-horse or sawhorse (saw-buck, trestle, buck) [1] is a trestle structure used to support a board or plank for sawing. A pair of sawhorses can support a plank, forming a scaffold. [2] In certain circles, it is also known as a mule and a short sawhorse is known as a pony. The names come from the shape of the frame, which resembles a horse. [3] A sawhorse may also be a rack for supporting logs for sawing, known in the US as a sawbuck.
The sawhorse may be designed to fold for storage. A sawhorse with a wide top is particularly useful to support a board for sawing or as a field workbench, and is more useful as a single, but also more difficult to store.
A sawhorse can also be used as the base for a portable work table by placing a sheet of plywood or even a door across two sawhorses. If the sawhorses are strong enough, the portable table can be used as a platform for tools like a table saw, although with caution if the top is not secured to the sawhorses.
In boatmaking, the curved nature of the cross-beam, designed to support the timbers used for hulls led to the colloquial name of sea-horse, this term, derived from old Norse, entered the Northumbrian dialect, it is thought, through Norwegian settlers as early as the 14th century.
Modern sawhorses are usually made of dimensional lumber, but the basic form of the sawhorse has remained unchanged for centuries. For example, one of the illustrations in De Re Metallica (1556) contains a drawing of a millwright using a pair of sawhorses to support the beams he is forming. The top of each of these sawhorses appears to be made from a halved log, with legs mortised or dovetailed into place. [4]
A device for crowd control in the 20th century had the shape of a sawhorse made of wood. [5] The legs are similar but rather heavy duty facsimiles of the hobby version of about the same height. The horizontal bar consists of a heavy-duty plank about 4.3 m (14 feet) long with printed on it in large letters: Police Line - Do Not Cross. Many cities have chosen to replace this wooden barrier with the French barrier, which is a metal crowd control device.[ citation needed ]
A circular saw or a buzz saw, is a power-saw using a toothed or abrasive disc or blade to cut different materials using a rotary motion spinning around an arbor. A hole saw and ring saw also use a rotary motion but are different from a circular saw. Circular saws may also be loosely used for the blade itself. Circular saws were invented in the late 18th century and were in common use in sawmills in the United States by the middle of the 19th century.
A saw is a tool consisting of a tough blade, wire, or chain with a hard toothed edge used to cut through material. Various terms are used to describe toothed and abrasive saws.
Portable sawmills are sawmills small enough to be moved easily and set up in the field. They have existed for over 100 years but grew in popularity in the United States starting in the 1970s, when the 1973 oil crisis and the back-to-the-land movement had led to renewed interest in small woodlots and in self-sufficiency. Their popularity has grown exponentially since 1982, when the portable bandsaw mill was first commercialized.
A table saw is a woodworking tool, consisting of a circular saw blade, mounted on an arbor, that is driven by an electric motor. The drive mechanism is mounted below a table that provides support for the material, usually wood, being cut, with the blade protruding up through the table into the material.
In woodworking, a rip-cut is a type of cut that severs or divides a piece of wood parallel to the grain. The other typical type of cut is a cross-cut, a cut perpendicular to the grain. Unlike cross-cutting, which shears the wood fibers, a rip saw works more like a series of chisels, lifting off small splinters of wood. The nature of the wood grain requires the shape of the saw teeth to be different, thus the need for both rip saws and crosscut saws; however, some circular saw blades are combination blades and can make both types of cuts. A rip cut is the fundamental type of cut made at a sawmill.
A sawmill or lumber mill is a facility where logs are cut into lumber. Modern sawmills use a motorized saw to cut logs lengthwise to make long pieces, and crosswise to length depending on standard or custom sizes. The "portable" sawmill is simple to operate. The log lies flat on a steel bed, and the motorized saw cuts the log horizontally along the length of the bed, by the operator manually pushing the saw. The most basic kind of sawmill consists of a chainsaw and a customized jig, with similar horizontal operation.
There are two kinds of trestle desk: as with trestle tables, some have trestles joined by one or more stretchers, and some have free-standing trestles. They can be dismantled, with the desk top removed from the trestles, for storage or transport.
In woodworking, a sawbuck is a structure for holding wood so that it may be cut into pieces. Easily made in the field from rough material, it consists of an "X" form at each end which are joined by cross bars below the intersections of the X's. The wood to be cut is placed in the V's formed above the intersections of the X's.
A table is an item of furniture with a raised flat top and is supported most commonly by 1 to 4 legs. It is used as a surface for working at, eating from or on which to place things. Some common types of tables are the dining room tables, which are used for seated persons to eat meals; the coffee table, which is a low table used in living rooms to display items or serve refreshments; and the bedside table, which is commonly used to place an alarm clock and a lamp. There are also a range of specialized types of tables, such as drafting tables, used for doing architectural drawings, and sewing tables.
A bucksaw is a hand-powered frame saw similar to bow saw and generally used with a sawbuck to cut logs or firewood to length (bucking). Modern bucksaws usually have a metal frame and a removable blade with coarse teeth held in tension by the frame. Lightweight portable or foldable models used for camping or back-packing are also available. It is often referred to as a bow saw in the North American hardware market, but that term traditionally refers to a different type of saw with a wooden frame.
A picnic table is a table with benches, designed for working with and for outdoor dining. The term is often specifically associated with rectangular tables having an A-frame structure. Such tables may be referred to as "picnic tables" even when used exclusively indoors.
In woodworking, a trestle table is a table consisting of two or three trestle supports, often linked by a stretcher, over which a board or tabletop is placed. In the Middle Ages, the trestle table was often little more than loose boards over trestle legs for ease of assembly and storage. This simple, collapsible style remained the most common Western form of table until the 16th century, when the basic trestle design gave way to stronger frame-based structures such as gateleg and refectory tables. Ease of assembly and storage has made it the ideal occasional table, and it remains a popular form of dining table, as those seated are not so inconvenienced as they might be with the more usual arrangement of a fixed leg at each corner.
Quarter sawing or quartersawing is a woodworking process that produces quarter-sawn or quarter-cut boards in the rip cutting of logs into lumber. The resulting lumber can also be called radially-sawn or simply quartered. There is widespread confusion between the terms rift sawn and quarter sawn with the terms defined both with opposite meanings and as synonyms.
This glossary of woodworking lists a number of specialized terms and concepts used in woodworking, carpentry, and related disciplines.
A whipsaw or pitsaw was originally a type of saw used in a saw pit, and consisted of a narrow blade held rigid by a frame and called a frame saw or sash saw. This evolved into a straight, stiff blade without a frame, up to 14 feet long and with a handle at each end. The upper handle was called the tiller and the lower one the box, so called from its appearance and because it could be removed when the saw was taken out of one cut to be positioned in another. The whipsaw was used close to the felling site to reduce large logs to beams and planks.
A chainsaw mill or PortaMill or Logosol sawmill is a type of sawmill incorporating a chainsaw, that is used by one or two operators to mill logs into lumber for use in furniture, construction and other uses. Although often used as a generic term, Alaskan Mill is a registered trademark of Granberg International.
A traffic barricade is a type of barricade used to control the flow of traffic or block access to an area, generally for safety purposes. Traditionally made of wood, or wood and steel, many now have structural members made wholly of plastic or composite materials, and may be fitted with flashing lights.
In structural engineering, a trestle support is a structural element with rigid beams forming the equal sides of two parallel isosceles triangles, joined at their apices by a plank or beam. Sometimes additional rungs are stretched between the two beams. A pair of trestle legs can support one or several boards or planks, forming a trestle table or trestle desk. A network of trestle supports can serve as the framework for a trestle bridge, and a trestle of appropriate size to hold wood for sawing is known as a sawhorse.
American historic carpentry is the historic methods with which wooden buildings were built in what is now the United States since European settlement. A number of methods were used to form the wooden walls and the types of structural carpentry are often defined by the wall, floor, and roof construction such as log, timber framed, balloon framed, or stacked plank. Some types of historic houses are called plank houses but plank house has several meanings which are discussed below. Roofs were almost always framed with wood, sometimes with timber roof trusses. Stone and brick buildings also have some wood framing for floors, interior walls and roofs.