WoodRiver Clamping System

[Alan Tolchinsky]

Anybody have this clamping system? It acts like a clamp plus it puts pressure to keep the boards flat in a panel glue up. It looks interesting and is on sale at Woodcraft.

woodcraft.com/product.aspx?ProductID=125392&FamilyID=321

[Rick Gifford]

Alan I have two of these. They work just fine. I think they are a good addition to the clamp collection.

[fRED mCnEILL]

I built somerthing similar to that when I first started woodworking and it workes fine. BUT, once I started to use Bessey Parallel jaw clamps I found it unnecessary to use such a clamping system. The parrallel jaw clamps exert pressure exactly 90 deg. to the wood being clamped so there is no tendency for the boards to want to bow as used to happen with non parallel jaw clamps. Of course the boards to be glued up need to be perfectly square but that isn't difficult.

Fred Mc.

[Alan Tolchinsky]

Thanks Rick and Fred. I've done a fair number of glue up and nothing is ever perfect. If you're off just a little with the edges being off 90degrees then you get some bowing in the panel. I like the extra insurance of holding the panel flat during glue up. Thanks guys.

[Dave Lehnert]

Shopsmith has had clamps like that available for years.
http://www.shopsmith.com/ownersite/catalog/mvclamp_doublebar.htm
http://www.shopsmith.com/ownersite/catalog/images/DoubleBarClamps.jpg



Here is a video on the use of the clamps as a veneer press.

http://www.shopsmithacademy.com/Tips_Archives/TP111_Bar_Clamp_Veneer_Press.htm

[Aaron Berk]

Gotta love them shopsmith folks.

By the way I sold my mark V today.
Not trying to hijack the thread, just putting it out there. today was a bitter sweet day.

[glenn bradley]

I have four of the Rockler version. Just to help set your expectations better than I set mine; they do work quite well but don't auto-magically align everything perfectly just by tightening.

[John Stevens]

Hi, Alan. I own six of them. They occasionally go on sale for about $20 apiece, and every time they do I tell myself I should get six more.

Three are enough to do a panel up to about 30" wide, supplemented with K-bodies in between. It's nice to have six, because while one panel is clamped, you can be spreading and clamping the next.

Twelve would be nice because then you'd have enough to put them 8-9" apart on some pretty wide panels.

They take more time to set up than other clamps like K-bodies or pipe clamps, but you save time in not having to put biscuits or dominos in the boards, and not having to spend much time scraping or planing the seams.

Hope this helps.

Regards,

John

[Stan Urbas]

Alan, these were my only laminating clamps for quite a while, but a few years ago I bought some Plano vertical clamps and never looked back. I gave my old clamps to my sister-in-law. The clamp you have are fine for a while, but eventually you can strip out the thread where you do the most clamping. The advantage to the Plano is that it uses an acme (square) thread which can take an extreme amount of repeated pressure without ever stripping out. But for low volume, what you have should work just fine.