April Fools???

[marc rosen]

Hey Tom, Last night I spent several minutes hammering out sixteen 3/8 inch dia. dowe ls and twelve 1/4 inch dia. dowels, all Sapele, 3 inch long using my Lie N ielsen dowel plate. My arm felt real weak afterward. This morning I saw t he Woodpecker ad and was real happy that I saved $345. I'm certain the Wo odpecker machine makes straighter dowels with less noise but I get a certai n amount of pleasure making mine with the plate. Also, whenever I give away or sell a project with exposed dowels the recip ient/customer always appears intrigued when I tell them I made the dowels w ith the LN plate and a hammer.

[-MIKE-]

Fair enough! :-D

[Leon]

It may very well be an April Fools joke. LOL

[Leon]

J. Clark pointed out the the ship date is April 2017. This very well may be like a Lee Valley April Fools joke. ;~)

[Leon]

Woodpeckers has a lot of great tools but it seems the stinkers tend to fall in the "One Time Tools" category. I probably use my story sticks as much a my Domino.. Ohhhhhhhh..

Having said that if I had not already been given a parallel guide for the Festool tracks, thank you very much, the WoodPeckers one time tool that does the same as the parallel guides seems better thought out and more useful and in the same price range.

[Spalted Walt]

Not likely as it takes you to the actual Paypal login page, not a spoofed one.

[krw]

No, Lee Valley is only a retailer for Woodpeckers tools. Woodpeckers Woodworking sent me the "One Time Tool" announcement last week, directly. I have a bunch of Woodpecker's tools and quite a few "One Time Tools" but this is certainly one I'll be passing on.

[krw]

Woodpeckers really thinks dowels are great stuff. I passed on that one, too.

[krw]

It may be an expensive joke on fools but it's definitely not an April fools joke.

[Spalted Walt]

+1 another example:

[Leon]

I saw this guy several months ago and wondered "WHY". Why not just put the second clamp beside the first?

[dadiOH]

That wouldn't create the VERTICAL pressure.

[krw]

Why not? There would be a small twist because of the offset but it's the same idea.

[Leon]

Yes it does when you alternate sides, and the champs do not need to be close, every 10-15" works well for me. You just evenly tighten all clamps in steps.

[DerbyDad03]

But would it apply 1000 lbs? ;-)

[dadiOH]

I agree that it is the conventional way to keep the glue up flat but I don't see how it applies vertical pressure. What am I missing?

[Leon]

Maybe I am misunderstanding. What do the modified clamps do that regular clamps will not do? If it is to prevent the bar from bending and warping the panel, alternating sides with clamps do the same. That is how I prevent the clamp bars from bowing and bending the glue up.

You do have to snug all evenly, top and bottom, then add more pressure evenly, top and bottom, and so on.

[krw]

When the clamps are tightened the force applied to the board is off-center of the clamp rails, causing them to bend towards the board.

[dadiOH]

They apply downward as well as lateral pressure because of the slope in the modified tail pieces. The top clamp fits in the bottom clamp, tightening the top one forces them down. That downward force all along the bar keeps the glueup flat. That's what the scale was showing...downward pressure. Of course, for that down push to function, the pieces being glued need to be on a flat surface.

[DerbyDad03]

Doesn't the bar of the bottom clamp provide that flat surface automatically?

The glue-up is being squeezed between 2 flat "surfaces" so it'll be flat regardless of where the jig is set up.