Clamping up a table top

[Jerome Hanby]

What do you guys use when clamping up a wide table top? I'm about to glue up a big blank to cut a round table from and I'm thinking it may end up wider than my 50" K bodies will hold. This a good time to buy some pipe and pipe clamps?

[Prashun Patel]

Wider clamps are the best way to go. If you don't care how it looks from the underside, you can use pocket screws as clamps - at least for the outermost panels.

[Mike Cutler]

I use Bow Clamps and pipe clamps to pull them in.

[Lance Norris]

What do you guys use when clamping up a wide table top? I'm about to glue up a big blank to cut a round table from and I'm thinking it may end up wider than my 50" K bodies will hold. This a good time to buy some pipe and pipe clamps?

Jerome, Bessey makes an extender for the K-body clamp. I assume you are using parallel clamps, correct? I use it on my Jet parallels and it works great...


http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=67765

http://www.hartvilletool.com/product/12497http://www.hartvilletool.com/shared/images/products//medium/16419-08.jpg

[David Thompson 27577]

Might be more work and expense that buying clamps, but you could make a jig wide enough to hold the glue-up. Build it so that you can then pound wedges into it, forcing pressure on the glue-up.

I've done this in one case where size was the determinant, and once when the issue was shape.

[Frank Drew]

It's axiomatic that you never have enough clamps in a shop, so many (most) of us have a ton of different clamps just because you might need an extra long set, or have a complicated glue up that needs a forest of clamps.

Pipe clamps are far from the best clamps, as clamps, but their advantage is that the clamp fixtures can be attached to any size pipe, and black pipe with one end threaded is pretty cheap, and doesn't present much of a storage problem. Or just bite the bullet and buy some 6 or 8 foot parallel or Jorgensen or Wexler bar clamps. Over the course of your woodworking life they'll no doubt pay for themselves.

[glenn bradley]

Pipe clamps are relatively inexpensive. I have a dozen in a wall-rack behind a toolbox. I only use them about every other year for things just as you describe. Some shop made or commercial bow-clamps (http://bowclamp.com/) could reduce the number you require. I picked my 3/4" Jorgies up on a "dozen" sale from Hartville (http://www.hartvilletool.com/product/10985) years ago. I often wonder why I have them until that wide glue up comes along every so often. If you have enough Besseys, a bolt through the tail holes can extend them or the commercial "extender" is available.

[Jerome Hanby]

Wider clamps are the best way to go. If you don't care how it looks from the underside, you can use pocket screws as clamps - at least for the outermost panels.

Funny you should mention that. i was watching a Kreg video and considering that...

[Jerome Hanby]

Duh, I had forgotten all about those. Hooking a 50 to a 24 would give me all I need and some to spare. Thanks!!!


Jerome, Bessey makes an extender for the K-body clamp. I assume you are using parallel clamps, correct? I use it on my Jet parallels and it works great...


http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=67765

http://www.hartvilletool.com/product/12497http://www.hartvilletool.com/shared/images/products//medium/16419-08.jpg