Writing on another post got me to wondering how and when clamps might have been used in the days when screws were very expensive.
There are a lot of known methods of work holding, but not so much is published on how and when they might have been applied in the pre- to early industrial revolution times, specifically the times between the widespread adoption of glue instead of pegs to secure furniture and the ready availability of machine-cut screw threads.
Surely someone on this forum must know.
Would an early glued dovetail be clamped at all?
What about a cabinet carcass?
Table tops?
Interested in thoughts…
Replies
This video may interest you.
https://youtu.be/rGD6vZ57y9s
Wedges are also great for clamping (see attached).
In addition:
Glue wasn't used as often in the old days, the need for it was designed away and (perhaps most importantly) the glue used was extremely different.
Protein glues (hide, rabbit skin, gelatine, etc) set when cool, and draw tighter as they dry.
Hence, you can just hold pieces together until they have tacked up, no clamps needed.
This is amazingly helpful when veneering as you don't need to work out bizzare clamping mechanisms. Hammer veneering sees you coat both sides of the veneer in glue (both sides to equalise the expansion of the wood, so it doesn't curl up). You then coat the substrate and bring them together. Then you squeeze all the excess glue out from between them (I like to use a firm brayer) and the water tension holds them together as the glue gels and tacks up. Then as it dries it pulls the pieces together with incredible force.
Protein glues also respond to moisture changes in a similar way to wood, so they're less prone to cracking.
Another note here is that people used to not have air conditioning, so furniture held a lot more humidity than our very dry houses today. Protein glues remain flexible and get more so with humidity, so furniture didn't split
Also, the glue can be fully reconstituted with humidity and heat (so if you need to repair or change something it's easy). This can be used to temporarily adhere support structures. Or slowly join intricate parts (luthiers do this sometimes when mating two surfaces. They will let him the glue dry on either surface then join them by warming a spatula and sliding it along the junction, allowing them to get a super accurate join).
I'm really getting into tangents here but protein glues also don't resist surface finishes, like modern (pva) adhesives.
I could go on and on about protein glues. They're really such a wonderful material. The more I use them the more I feel they're superior to everything else.
All that said...
Lathes have existed for thousands of years. Ancient Greeks had them, after all. And many old screws were made of wood. Old book presses are a good example of this. Wood actually works really well for screws; they're less prone to binding than metal ones and work best when cut with a square profile (which is easiest to do with hand tools).
Glue and drawbored pegs and wedges did a great job of holding many things together.
Well, Archimedies(sp) invented the screw so you would think that since about then - a couple hundred years BC - that a screw clamp of some type existed.
I've seen some spectacular woodwork done by ancient Egyptians. Much older still.They obviously would have needed pretty sophisticated clamping arrangements to accomplish some of the work they were doing. Sometimes a twisted string works better than anything you can buy.