After I built a sawbuck I was watching a movie.  In front of a remote woodland cabin in the Russian wilderness was a sawbuck.  I never would have noticed it before I had my own.  I’ll probably start seeing them everywhere now.

It was the same when I built a beehive.  In every period film I see things in the backgrounds I love.  Old things, timeless shapes, farm tools and equipment.

Do you have favorite movies for the things you see on the sets?  I’d love to hear about them.

But, I was talking about my sawbuck.

If you don’t know what a sawbuck is, it’s a sawhorse with a v-shaped top for cutting logs.  You can read a summary here.

I made a very simple version with a central pole so the sawbuck can be collapsed for storage.  I also think it’s an easy way to put one together.  The only harder-to-find thing  you need is a length of 1 1/4″ dowel (standard closet pole size) and a corresponding 1 1/4″ drill bit.  After that, it’s all cake.

I used some old 2×4’s my neighbor and I found while “curb estate shopping” (discarded on the side of the road), an old piece of closet pole, and pieces of old decking from a tear-down.  Well, which a falling tree tore down for me. . .

I cut six 2×4’s each 3 feet long and cut 30 degree angles in one end of each piece (legs).

Beginning about 8 inches from the other (non angled) ends, I drilled 1 1/4″ holes for the dowel.

I slid the dowel through all three pairs of legs making sure the angled ends alternated, with their “toes” pointing out.

I cut two 32″ lengths of the salvaged decking and screwed one side of each pair to the ends of the boards.  2 x 4’s would also work for this part.

I centered the central pair between the end pairs and screwed it in place to the decking, then screwed the decking down to the other legs.

Almost finished.  Lastly I sliced a bit off the inside of the “ears” of the 2×4’s to make room for larger logs.  You should probably do this before you screw everything together, but it worked out okay doing it this way.

The only thing left to do is to attach a length of chain between two of the legs to keep my sawbuck from doing the splits.

I’m hoping to find some discarded chain somewhere.

Maybe at my next curb estate sale.

The main reason I built a sawbuck is because I plan to try my hand at growing shiitake mushrooms this year.  The sawbuck makes a good place to hold logs while drilling holes for the plugs of spawn, inoculating the logs, and painting them with melted wax.

The sawbuck also will come in handy cutting longer logs into fireplace length.

Hope to bring news and info on the mushroom growing soon.