Saw Horses-an introduction

 

Saw Horses

 The cedar wood awnings I made on a whim are old and the soft wood is sun and wind worn, wrinkled and cracked like an old face. They have weathered twenty years of winters and summers. the nails are looking to leave. The bow of the staves has come to bend like the salty old ribs of a boat left the beach. It was this now, or never, if they would be salvaged. I screwed myself up for the task. 

When I first thought of the idea of wooden sunshades I was in the throws of boat fever, a condition I have fought my whole life. I have come to the conclusion that I am to be forever land bound. Never to see the porpoises off the bow or dive to loose an anchor from the crags of a reef. But I make the most of my land-locked life. I have a house I built far from the ocean. I have a dog that hates all bodies of water and a wife who does not know how to swim. The meal of my life has not had many “salty” experiences. Few boats. Some diving but that was a long time ago and most of my swimming now is in a chlorinated pool or in the breakers just off the edge of a sandy beach. Disappointing. I know. But occasionally I build something that has a hint of “boat” to it. It is apt to be expressed in a strange way, and these awnings are of that mood. The stringers have a gentle curve to them like the bosom of a whaling boat. The staves are thin and fine but still strong enough to inspire one with sea-worthiness. The braces not at a 45 degree angle because nothing on a boat is at 45 degrees, but they are delicately chamfered, eased like the gunnels of a dinghy or a handle on a rudder, and “let in” to the stringers with a “bird’s mouth” that is positive and can not slip. They were made out of the scraps of the cedar siding I used on the house. Ripped on the old Sears and Roebuck cast iron table saw that was old when I bought it thirty years ago. It cost me $75. I bought it from an old Italian fella (I am probably ten years older than he was back then. ) Dust covered, he had it in his garage in the Bronx and I picked it up from him when me and the family were on the way up to work on the house one Saturday morning.

 

The rips of fragrant cedar were cut and fitted and fastened on the pair of sawhorses that built this house and have been building projects here ever since. I keep them in a spot under the front porch along with the cheap wheelbarrow that just about does anything a good wheelbarrow would do but with shaking, shimmying, and half the capacity. I’ve never been much for really good tools-read-”expensive tools”. I like used tools. But I only like my own saw horses. They stand up over time. They are sturdy enough to use as a platform scaffold. They are made of scraps. They don’t mind being cut so long as they are not cut all the way through-and I’ve never done that once in my life-so sawhorses are for ever.

 

I have written before about sawhorses I have made and I have drawn some pictures of them and even taken some photos of a pair in Florida. Anything, I guess, can be art. I wonder if anyone has ever done a book about saw horses?