the screw-in sawhorse feet

What? You're going to start the blog with feet? Sure, the bottom seems like a good place to start.

The manual for the Workmate 79-001 Type 1 refers to the feet for the lower height as "Sawhorse" feet. The sawhorse feet for the Type 1 through Type 5 screw into the lower corners of the frame, providing adjustable height at all four corners. (The feet themselves are identical to the screw-in main feet used on the folding legs for these Types, but right now I'm only talking about the sawhorse feet.)

Unlike the main feet on the folding legs, which were installed at the factory, the sawhorse feet were packaged separately, with instructions in the manual about how to install them. Some owners didn't have much use for the lower height of the Workmate. It wasn't unusual for some to just start using the Workmate without the sawhorse feet, and not find any reason to ever install them. The bag of feet would get put somewhere, separated from the Workmate, and perhaps even tossed out. So, unfortunately, some of the Type 1 through 5 are found with only the four feet on the main legs.

A second reason the feet may be missing is that it was a bit fiddly to install them. The stamped steel folding legs of these four Types have holes about 1-1/2" in diameter near their top ends that allow the sawhorse feet to pass through the leg when the leg is unfolded for full-height use. The instruction manual has specific directions about how to install the feet, with an accompanying diagram showing that they must be screwed in so that they extend from the frame by 1-5/16" to 1-7/16". This is correct for the Type 1 with its cone-shaped pad, but the distance has to be larger for the later models with round pads. For the Type 2 and 4 the manual continued to show the shorter measurement, but this was wrong; the foot actually has to extend about 1-9/16". For the Type 3 the extension has to be about 1-7/8" or so.

If the feet are not installed as directed, the hole in the leg will not clear the rubber pad as the leg is being folded or unfolded. The leg may just graze the pad, it may rub on it more heavily, or it may catch on the pad pretty badly, depending on how the foot was adjusted. Some owners may have installed the feet without reading the manual, found that the legs were hitting them, decided that they just wouldn't work right, taken them off and left them off. This could be another cause of lost feet.

The other result of the design is potential damage to the rubber pads on the sawhorse feet. It's common to find improperly installed feet that have been chewed up to varying degrees from repeatedly catching on the legs as the legs were folded and unfolded.

This leads to two bits of advice if you're considering purchase of a 79-001 Type 1 through 5:

• If there are no sawhorse-level feet, ask the seller (or look around the estate sale yourself) to see if they can be found. Regardless of what they may tell you, every Workmate did originally come with eight feet.
• If the sawhorse feet are installed, be careful about folding and unfolding the legs until you're sure the legs are not hitting and damaging the feet.