DIY Panel Clamps- Help please

[Marc Jeske]

Something like this might be OK -

http://www.rockler.com/how-to/wall-m...d-panel-press/

[Bradley Gray]

And I will still have some trouble w sliding and uplifting edges due to my inevitebly imperfect prepared edges due to limited experience, a short bed jointer, no planer, etc.

I have a Plano wall mount glue press. It does a great job of making flat, straight panels, but the mating surfaces still need to fit well.

Powerful clamps may be able to force poorly mating surfaces together but the issues will come back - you need to learn to fine tune with a hand plane or ? if you wish to make flat panels that stay flat.

[Marc Jeske]

Yup, I've looked at the Plano also.

I'll end up making some hybrid of the above ideas.

My jointer is the Craftsman 6" that was sold like in the 70's or so... Should I be able to do 7' 3/4 x 5" edges of boards on that?

If I had a longer bed I would feel more confident, but I'm hoping not to have to buy that.

I find past about 4-5' it gets more difficult to keep seated on beds.

I suppose I could extend the beds like this video -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9HVUU-fF4k

Alternately, make an long infeed table for tablesaw and run them on a straightlining sled against my Biesmeyer w a Freud Glue Line blade.. then no jointer needed ?

I think the infeed table will reduce the "snipe" kinda thing I often get on rips by not not being perfectly parallel starting the cut.

Also possibly extend the fence on infeed end.

Actually, I will be running 8' boards, (need 7') so I can always cutoff one foot of bad rip end.

What do you guys think of those ideas ?



Marc

[Simon MacGowen]

[QUOTE=Marc Jeske;2776310]After alot of looking, I'm pretty sure this style of clamp will work good for me.

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You are heading the wrong direction. Your problem is not with clamping but with basic stock preparation skill, or the lack of it.

Clamping won't fix your jointing woes. If you already have two or three flat boards to join and have a tablesaw (I assume you do), joint them on the tablesaw. There is a fool-proof tablesaw method (regardless of whether it cuts dead square), using the principle of complementary angles to "true" all the edges. Google it and you should be able to find some Youtube videos.

Simon

[Marc Jeske]

Thank you Simon.

Yes, I am familiar w the complementary flip flop thing...whether be off of table saw, jointer, router,... all edge prep methods benefit from it. and that is one of the main reasons I am interested in one of the clamp styles such as talked about... w the "built in" caul effect to keep those imperfect 90 edges from sliding.

As I mentioned above, I may use the table saw rather than jointer to prep the edges.

Will read more about that.

Marc