Erickson Sawhorse Brackets for Truck Tailgate - Qty 4

Video Transcript for Erickson Truck Tailgate Sawhorse Brackets Review and Installation

Hey, there hard workers. Today we're going to be taking a look at Erickson's big bed tailgate saw horse. What I like about this is that you can easily use it out in the field or on the job site, just using some two by fours that you've probably already got that you're working with. This will help you avoid situations like this ,where you've just got somebody in the back of the truck trying to hold and balance it while we take our cut. Now this probably isn't the safest thing here for me or for Jonathan here, but we've got a solution that's going to make this much safer and a lot more sturdy to make it a better overall cut in the end.Now we've taken a couple of two by fours and installed them into our Erickson brackets. We've got a nice workstation here for us to set our wood on.

It's much easier than with the truck bed and having somebody in the back because I have two points of contact, which ensures that the wood stays flat. I don't know if you could tell before, but with the bed being solid all the way across, it was wanting to roll and pivot and it was really hard to work with. Having two points here. I can hold it steady all by myself, I don't need an assistant. And now we can go ahead and make a clean safe cut.With this here, it's great for cutting, drilling and also setting up to make measurements.

When you get your truck bed, you know you really can't take that long piece of wood out the back and you have to set it up here and you don't want to mess up your truck. So we've got a spot right here and this is also much lower and a lot easier to work with then it would be if I just sat it on the bed rails.Another thing I like about this is, since they're set about 36 inches apart, you can easily use four by eight sheets of plywood or four by four and you'll know that it will fit on here so you can make cuts with those easily. Now if you're out in the field working, when you're ready to take a break, you can go ahead and throw a piece of plywood on there and you've got yourself a nice little table. Guys can come around and grab some drinks and their sandwiches out of the cooler and when you're already, you can get back to work. It's also great for an impromptu tailgate table, so you can enjoy your sporting events with friends and family outside.

I would recommend if you're going to do that, that you attach the two by four to the plywood that you set on top just so it's more stable at a tailgating event. And that's easy enough since our plywood's sitting on top of the two by fours we're using for our saw horse.And then you could throw a tablecloth on top and nobody would be the wiser. By adding a third two by four between the two that we've got slid into our Erickson saw horse tie-downs, we can use our setup now as a truck bed extender so you can fit something on it such as long pieces of timber, ladders or even a kayak like we have here. Now I'm sure some of you out there probably had the same concerns that I've got that, "Well if you're using this as a truck bed extender and you just have two by fours slid into your brackets, what keeps it in place" Well, I was going to run some screws down at the other end of the brackets, but I tested it beforehand and the way the brackets hold the two by fours in here, you really can't just pull it straight out. It just does not work that way.

You'll have to release them and slide them out gently.One of the things that I like about this, especially if you are planning on using something like this, you're probably pretty handy. So I've got these installed in here and normally I'd take them out before I shut my tailgate, but I just wanted to show you, that we shut them, they'll still stay in place. So if we needed to, we could even get creative and make a makeshift ladder wreck, put a beam across and you could run some stuff from here up to the headache rack that's installed in the back of your truck. There's just all kinds of things that you can really do with something that gives you so much customizability. When you're all done, just slide your two by fours out and you can start on your truck bed. Just got to keep those even so they slide out.The handles will fold flat and when you shut your tailgate, the system really doesn't take up any space inside your truck bed. Another thing that I find when you do have the tailgate shut, you could flip them up and they would make light duty tie down points, now I wouldn't put anything crazy on here, but if you just need something light and you just need this extra spot, you've got a hoop here. Now that we've gone over some of the features, let's go over the installation together, so you have the confidence to do it at home. The only thing you're going to need for this installation is a Phillips head screwdriver, preferably on a gun to run the self tapping screws in and then two, two by fours that are four foot in length. To get our brackets installed, we first want to figure out how we're going to lay them out on our truck bed so we can get all the bolts installed properly.Now there are a lot of holes in here and we want to use as many of them as possible, but we need to have at least a minimum of six used. So you can see here that I've lined it up on the raised portion because we also need to make sure that where they're attaching, there's no gap between it so you can see on each side we can attach it as well as four across the front here. Another thing we want to make sure of, is that the handles are facing downs. When we close our tailgate, the handle will be able to just fall down. You don't want to put it like this because when you go to close your tailgate, the handle me want to open up and then it's going to make a bunch of noise and things could potentially get caught on it.And lastly, we want to make sure that they are approximately 36 inches apart. Now mine here are just a little bit less than that, but I don't want to cover up the bolt holes here, so if I need to get this panel off, I can do so easily. So reduced in mine by about an inch or so. Now that we found its position, we're going to use the included self tappers and run it down into place. I'm going to go ahead and start with the two towards the center here at the front and we're going to run those in. Also I didn't mention earlier, but you do want to try to stay towards the outside, but give yourself about a one to two inch gap on the edges.We're using a number two Phillips bit to drive these in.Now that I've got this one installed, I can do the same thing on the other side and I'm actually going to use this one to help ensure that it lines up properly with my back one so I know I can slide my two by fours in and out easily. So I already know I want it to be at about this position. So I'm going to go ahead and lift up on the handle, slide my two by four through and then I'm going to slide it through this one and ensure that they are all going to match up. I'm going to put it at about that position, just look to make sure that we've got a gap on each side of our rings so we know that we're not offset with them. So this looks like a pretty good position here. I can get a self tapper in the spot there as well as the ones here in the back corner. I'm going to do the back corner ones first. Just trying to make sure that these are still going to be in raised sections on this side.With our other side installed. We're ready to slide our wood in and get to work. Slide through your first ring and you get to your second. Lift up on that one and just continue sliding it until it stops. It wants to hit on the stop here at the back and this gives you a good point for it to rest against. And this still gives you plenty of length sticking out the other side, so you've got plenty of area to work on. The two by fours I'm using are 48 inches long and that's an ideal amount to get enough grip here on the tailgate and give you plenty of workspace on the back. Well, it's about break time for me so, I'm going to go ahead and put this to good use. You guys take it easy out there.