Horsing Around (A Sawhorse Project) #1: A moment of ingenuity followed by stupidity

I wanted to chisel out a tenon since I didn’t have any good saws for ripcuts (though I do have one for crosscuts). After I made a crosscut for the shoulders I was trying to figure out how to proceed without a vise (on another note if anyone has recommendations for a good vise under $100 I’m all ears). Here’s my makeshift leg vise (or post vise maybe?).

Everything looking good so far.

So I insert the 1st leg (from previous photo) and everything fits. Now on to the second… wait a minute…

Well… yeah… If I could I would be beating my head over the sawhorse but I don’t think it’s stable enough to handle hits from my clearly thick skull.

This is the second sawhorse I screwed up. On the one below I was nailing the third leg onto the beam when I realized it was shorter than the first two. I tried to yank the leg off but the nail was in there pretty good so I had to cut off the legs so I could dispose of it. I feel bad for the other sawhorse not having a mate… I should remedy that.

So I guess the lesson here (which I have yet to learn apparently) check everything a billion times (in my case I think for everyone else twice or thrice is enough).