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On the cover of “Workbenches: From Design & Theory to Construction & Use” there are a couple low sawhorse-gizmos parked beneath my French-style workbench that look like Munchkins from the Lollipop Guild could have used them to build the set for the “Wizard of Oz.”
Those are Japanese sawing trestles that I built five or six years ago based on plans from Toshio Odate’s “Japanese Woodworking Tools: Their Tradition, Spirit, and Use.” I built the trestles to do some hands-on research on Japanese sawing methods after several people had mentioned that Japanese saws weren’t designed to be used at a high Western-style workbench.
After I built the trestles, I pushed my current bench aside and started sawing on the floor of our shop. To make joinery crosscuts, you place the work across the trestles and kneel on a mat (I used a moving blanket). To make rips, such as a tenon cheek, you prop the work up on the trestle, stand on the work and cut the cheek. (See the photo.)
I have to agree that the Japanese saws did cut more efficiently this way, especially the ryoba. But you do have to be in better shape than a typical Western woodworker. That’s because you are the woodworking vise. Your weight and your muscles immobilize the work as you saw. Plus, you have to tune your sense of balance a little finer.
After I finished with that experiment, I kept the trestles around because they’re quite handy. I use them primarily for assembling things on my benchtop. With my work resting on the trestles I can easily clamp all around the work and under it.
My trestles are cherry and made from 2″-thick stock , I built them entirely by hand from some stock we had harvested from a co-worker’s back yard. Also, just for fun, I built them without glue or metal fasteners , I remembered something about that detail from college when I studied the Shinto religion. You don’t want to mess with the kami. It was a fun afternoon project. The trestles are 16″ long and 6″ high. If I had to make them again, I’d probably make them 18″ or 20″ long , sometimes they are a bit small to hold casework.
– Christopher Schwarz
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