While the pictures in the patent are pretty poor, this may be my favorite patent. Early in the design process for the Dewalt DWX725 saw horses, we had identified the desire to be able to lash two horses together for carry and storage – its rare you only need one sawhorse.
Initial concepts had used traditional jeep hood style latches. This meant that there was a male and female end of the horses, and to mate them together, the user had to mate the male end of one to the female of the other. Getting it wrong, added a few seconds to putting away the tools, but also added to user frustration. I was inspired by the clasp on my wife’s purse and developed the genderless latch system that you see in the patent.
https://patents.google.com/patent/US8439165B2/
Abstract
A saw horse combination includes two saw horses. Each saw horse has a beam, first and second brackets disposed respectively at the ends of the beam, and legs pivotably attached to the brackets for supporting the beam. A locking mechanism is also provided for connecting the first and second horses. The locking mechanism includes a first latch movably connected to a bracket of the first saw horse, and a second latch movably connected to a bracket of the second saw horse. These latches are movable between a first position where the latches do not engage and a second position where the latches engage.
