Elevated clamping cauls with movable feet.

[Ola Carmonius]

Don't know if this is new but I haven't really seen anything similar before. Small thing I came up with a few years ago and have turned out to be very useful in different kind of glue ups.

The feet under the clamping cauls are movable sideways, so I can (almost) always move them to a position where they won't interfere with my clamps. Distance to bench enough to reach with the clamp heads under the cauls. Bolts in threaded inserts in feet, routed t-tracks in the clamping caul. Full info in the video.

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https://youtu.be/EGOEedxhH1I

[Andrew More]

Very smart. I saw something similar from Jay Bates where he used PVC + melamine to make a stand to keep the workpiece off the table. Helps enormously with glue ups and getting clamps under. I like your solution a little better for panels because I find myself still fumbling around with the cauls in some cases.

[Ola Carmonius]

Thanks Andrew, haven't seen Jays myself so can't compare with his idea but my clamping cauls have defenitely made life easier when it comes to glue ups. When I made these they were primarily for panels but they get used in all kind of glue ups nowadays.

[Andrew More]

This is Jay's approach:
https://jayscustomcreations.com/2022/01/panel-glue-up-platform/
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[Ola Carmonius]

Ok, thanks for the link. I would say those are quite different to mine, more of work elevators than cauls. Nothing wrong with that but mine does more things.

[ChrisA Edwards]

Thank you Ola, will be making a set of those later today. Nice addition to the shop tools.

[Mike Henderson]

Those are a very nice idea. I have a lot of cauls and always have to put supports under the cauls so that I can get the clamps on (I have a couple of pieces of 3X3 that I use for that). Yours would help with that, but seem to present a storage problem. If I leave the supports on the cauls, they take more storage room. If I take the supports off, I have two storage sites and have to assemble them to the cauls before use.

Just a trade-off. Your idea is ingenious. Also, I like your photography where you did the photo in black and white with the caul in color. What software do you use for post processing?

Mike

[Ola Carmonius]

Thanks Chris and Mike. Simple idea but very useful, really recommend this.

Yes the cauls will take more storage room with the feet on, but you can move the feet to a position where they can be stored overlapped.

Software for the picture is in the app photo director for Android, the feature is called colour splash where you choose a colour to keep. Usually some manual work is needed after the software done its part. I do this in the phone, quite simple but nice if I want to highlight a certain thing in a picture.