Door/case clamps

[Brian Holcombe]

Getting pretty tired or bessey clamps imprinting into my yellow cedar shoji so I’m Looking for comments on the various types of case and door clamps and preferences. Biesse style fully automated are a bit out of my range but I’m looking at a few others with Pneumatic and hydraulic setups. Not interested in anything with manual screw clamps.

[Jim Becker]

Getting pretty tired or bessey clamps imprinting into my yellow cedar shoji so I’m Looking for comments on the various types of case and door clamps and preferences. Biesse style fully automated are a bit out of my range but I’m looking at a few others with Pneumatic and hydraulic setups. Not interested in anything with manual screw clamps.
I'm not familiar with that stuff, Brian, but while you figure this out, can you use some thin strips of wood between the clamp faces and the soft material? They would absorb the distortion from the clamp face at least. It would be wood or even leather. I suspect this is a challenge that comes with working with softer, finer (and really beautiful) material like the yellow cedar. Luthers tend to use leather for this situation.

[Phillip Mitchell]

Have you looked closely at JLT? I have been close to winning a few bids on the manual clamp JLT clamp racks in the past. I’m sure they make pneumatic versions for a variety of applications, but I don’t know new pricing that well. Might be work a look.

[Joe Calhoon]

Brian,
I have a Italpress frame clamp. Very heavy duty and great for massive entry doors and window units. You have to be really careful with smaller frames and furniture doors as it’s easy to crush them while pressing.
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I am actually going to sell this and set up a Soukup frame press in my shop. I am a shareholder in Soukup and it will also be for demo. I am semiretired and doing more variety and want a more versatile clamp that will do furniture and door work. These and the Barth are very versatile and also have accessories for many other tasks including casework clamping. I set up and used the Barth press at the shop we set up in Bhutan. I have set up and used the Soukup one also if you have any questions.

https://soukupamerica.com/products/clamping-squaring-equipment

here is the Barth one in Bhutan.
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[Lee Schierer]

I use thin pieces of scrap left from ripping operations between the clamp faces and the work to distribute the clamping force over a wider area to avoid having indentations in the finished work.

[Brian Holcombe]

I don’t do the scrap because I have to move the clamps from kumiko to Kumiko, or I need 15 50” bessey clamps. I normally use 5-6 clamps per frame.

Gotta move fast as well, since it is time consuming to put glue on the kumiko tenons.

Thanks, Joe! Been looking at Barth but I will look at Soukup.

Phillip, I saw some JLT stuff but haven’t seen any of it in person.

[John P Clark]

Brian;

To second Joe’s comment, I have had a soukup for the last two years and have been very happy with it - and they have accessories that you can get with it so you can do additional items.

[Bobby Robbinett]

I just googled Barth and Soukup and they look like high end industrial clamps systems. Very nice. I own a cabinet door shop and send out a lot of doors every day. I have two door clamp tables, one a JLT and the other a Ritter. I have been looking for a third on the used market to no avail. For gluing up panels for raised panel doors I use a JLT clamp rack. I have the small 6ft version and wish I had more. They are great. They have both manual and pneumatic panel flatterers available. In addition to a glue tank that you press your stock on edge before placing in the rack.

I have two old furniture clamp machines which are roughly 24” deep x 48” wide. I haven’t found much use for them since we quit building cabinets. I do occasionally use them for clamping drawer fronts when the Ritter table is occupied because my gen 1 JLT door assembly table can’t do a 6” tall drawer front as it is too narrow.

If anyone has a door assembly table or clamp rack to get rid of please hit me up!




Dan
(870)679-9618

[Michael Schuch]

Couldn't the clamping force of pretty much any pneumatic clamp be pretty easily controlled by the pressure regulator on the compressor?

Are the Bessey clamps you are referring to the manual screw F clamps or do they have some kind of automated clamp I am not aware of?

[Derek Meyer]

Just cut some thin material the same size as your clamp face and use double stick tape to fasten them to the clamp's faces. No more marring, and you don't have to re-position the protective faces when you move clamps.