Woodpeckers Clampzilla Frustrations

[Alan Lightstone]

So, I bought this One Time Tool in July 2020. Generally I'm a big fan of a number of their One Time Tools. But the Clampzilla is driving me crazy.

I finally was able to use it to clamp together a 1-3/8" board I'm gluing together, but it seems far more difficult to use than just using a few Jet parallel clamps. It takes forever to get the plugs setup for the correct size for the individual board, then it gets in the way while applying the glue, and makes for a glue mess when placing the boards together and getting the clamp to close.

Is it just me? Or am I doing this wrong. I'm following their directions. Now this may provide a boatload of clamping pressure, and keep boards together, but using Woodpeckers Bar Clamps (which they've discontinued, but are very useful) and some parallel clamps is so much easier.

Anybody have this and getting good use out of it?

[Frederick Skelly]

Alan, maybe WP could help. You might call them if you havent already.
Best of luck.
Fred

[Paul F Franklin]

I don't have the woodpecker clamps, but have another similar style. I think where they missed on this one is only having the quick release retainer on one end. If you could completely remove the top-side bar, it would make it much easier to have the lower part of the clamps lined up and waiting for the panel. As it is now, it looks like you have to have an area big enough to support twice the length of the bars. I'd look at getting another set of self locking clevis pins (Mcmaster sells them) so you could completely remove the top-side bars and then quickly attach them when the glued up panel is in place.

[glenn bradley]

I've had other versions of 4-way clamps and fared no better.