Awesome Find: Ancient Craftsman Heavy Duty Sawhorse Brackets

A slightly unrelated post to the monsters:

While hunting Goodwill for some other stuff, I found these dusty boxes on the back of a shelf.  Two pairs of Craftsman Heavy Duty Sawhorse Brackets.

The box states “Fully Mechanical” and “No nails, bolts or miter cutting of legs necessary, to make your own sawhorse!”  “A twist of the wingnut locks legs and rail rigidly in place!” and “Does not limit load capacity of sawhorse” and “Assemble or disassemble on the job for transporting and storing.”

Sweeeeeeeet. Some much needed sawhorse brackets!

I figured the brackets were pretty tough considering most of these old things tend to be made in the USA and they appear to be from the 50’s.  There wasn’t much information on them, so I googled them.  The numbers on this item were “5R-1-9 2849.”  Also, I found the patent number 2,545,767 by C. E. Dalton.

Some sexy mid-century box decals.

Reading over the info on the box makes me wonder if no one knew what these were.  They diagrammed up all sorts of “options” for the use of these brackets.  Craftsman suggested the following uses:

• Banquet & Picnic Tables
• Winches (which is just plain ridiculous in my mind)
• Fuel Tanks (Yeah right, a 2×4 supporting a 55-gallon or 275-gallon tote…)
• Barricades
• Ping Pong and Train Tables
• Plasterers and Painters Platforms
• Trailer Supports (lol)
• Display Stands
• Scaffolding
• Carpenter’s Sawhorse (which was pretty much the only thing I considered this was for)

Side 1

Side 2

Side 3

I didn’t take a picture of it, but also they included a 4-step process for assembly.

• 1. Put rail on floor.  Place bracket on rail.
• 2. Insert legs in sockets.
• 3. Spread legs, forcing teeth on bracket to bite into rail.
• 4. Tighten wingnut.

What’s really hilarious, is the original price tag was next to the Goodwill tag.  Back in 1953, you could pick up a pair of these bad boys for a cool four bucks.  The tag even says “Sears, Roebuck, and Co.” and “5R-1-9 2849.” for whatever that means.  I remarked on how there isn’t a bar code anywhere.  Crazy.

Both Price Tags...

I opened one box up and the pieces have never been used.  They still look immaculate.  Really heavy duty steel too.  I’m ready to fab up some stands for my new Monster currently being constructed….(see the previous posts for glimpses of the fun.)

On the bottom, there were some “OTHER USES” that were hilarious.  One such use was “See-saws.”  Yeah right.  No wonder every kid in the 50’s lost a finger or tooth on their play equipment.  I should probably be careful with these, cuz they are probably coated in some sort of asbestos paint or metal forged on a Trinity site.