Caul for Help.....

[Marc Prudhomme]

Hello fellow Creekers,
Does anyone have any easy tricks on using cauls with the joist in your basement.I am glueing some hardwood flooring on top of a workbench and I want nice equal pressure through the whole strip while the glue sets.I seem to remember reading somewhere about using pipe clamps
Marc

[Jamie Buxton]

One trick is the go-stick. Cut a stick slightly longer than the distance from the workbench to the joist overhead. Bend it to a slight C shape so it is short enough to fit between the workbench and the ceiling, and put it in place. As the stick tries to straighten out, it exerts a great deal of force on the bench. Experiment with the thickness of the stick and the length until you get a force that you like. Make lots of such sticks, and you can put lots of force on the bench. A nice feature is that you can put clamping force in the middle of a large panel, where ordinary clamps can't reach.

Warning: the ceiling must be able to stand the force. Sheetrock won't do. Joists and the subfloor above will do.

[David DeCristoforo]

"...the ceiling must be able to stand the force..."

...and you want to be careful not to push the house off the foundation....

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

"...the ceiling must be able to stand the force..."

...and you want to be careful not to push the house off the foundation....

Or the earth out of it's orbit.

[Jim Becker]

Silly wabbits... :D

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Marc, as I see it, you can do what you want to do no problem--wedges can give you some nice pressure. If there is sheet rock, your "cauls" should have a wide foot that will most certainly span more than one joist to avoid issues. And you'll want that at the bottom anyway to spread the pressure out.

[Marc Prudhomme]

Or the earth out of it's orbit.
Funny as hell

[Art Mann]

I use a small hydraulic jack and a 4X4 post that is a little shorter than the distance from my workbench surface to a support beam running the length of my shop. You have to be pretty careful as even this little jack can exert a lot more force than you need and can damage things.