Hello,
I am intrigued with the clamps designed for panel glue ups that put pressure on the tops and bottoms as well as the edges, as they are tightened. This allegedly prevents uneven panels. Woodcraft Supply and Veritas/ Lee Valley both sell these in different designs.
It would be helpful if anyone has experience that might be compared with Bessey K Body clamps, with or without biscuits.
Thanks,
Ken
Replies
You can do the same thing with curved cauls and regular pipe clamps and quick clamps. Just another gimmic to sell to the beginners in my opinion. Curved cauls insure perfect registration and biscuits are never needed for edge glue ups. I can glue up a perfect 4' x 8' panel in one shot myself and all I do scrape the excess glue and sand to finish.
Edited 2/20/2005 7:01 pm ET by rick3ddd
Hi Ken. Edge glue ups are simple. I use either pipe clamps or Gross Stabils. I have some pieces of maple about 3' long that are perfectly straight. I cut these down so that they are about 1/4" taller than a clamp sitting in its upright position on my assembly bench. Lay the maple beside the clamp so that when you lay your wood to be clamped it is on the maple not on the clamps. Sight along the maple edges first and shim as required to level them. Now you are clamping on a flat surface and with the use of some small clamping blocks between the clamp and the edge of the wood, there will be almost no distortion when you tighten the clamps. Simply snug up the clamps and tap any board that does not line up with a hammer and then tighten the clamps. I really do not think that the typical caul is necessary at all. Peter.
give me a few days, and i'll post some pics of a panel clamp i was working on.
still in the prototype stages, kinda rough but it works.
Oh, okay, it was more than a few days. But here you go!
I think the wood started out as regular construction grade 2 X 4 or 2 X 6. If I picked it up at the HD or Lowe's, I carefully went through the stack and culled for center cut boards, knots, and splits. (Center cut boards are the ones that look like bull's eye targets when you look at the endgrain of the 2 X. They are almost always guaranteed to warp, split, etc. I don't know why Lowe's claims it is better lumber in it's commercials.) Anyhoo!
Ripped it down to a true 1 1/2 X 1 1/2. Drilled several holes for a carriag bolt to go through (vertically) both pieces. You'll see the wing nut in the pic. Then drilled the other holes. The top bar gets a hole and then a slot, so that the metal hardware can swing and hook into it. The bottom bar always has the metal stuff attached to it.
Like I said earlier, it is just a prototype. To revamp it, I would make the center cylindrical piece out of square stock instead. Square stock would be easier to clamp steady for drilling and tapping.
About the time I was making this, I came across Larry's Clamp at the WWer's show. It is a portable pneumatic driven panel flattener. Costs around 3 to 400 bucks. And you still have to use bar or pipe clamps. I thought his invention would be just the ticket for a commercial shop that had to glue up a lot of panels. Then I priced the materials for my panel clamp. Mmmm..........
So here it is:
I almost forgot. That is 3/8" X 16 threaded rod. I havn't quite figured how to keep the rod straight and then a way to permanently attach a pad to the end of the rod. So it doesn't dig in. Maybe some t-track, some washers, scrap wood, cork, and 2 jam nuts.
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