Rockler Pock-it Hole Clamp

[Upscale]

Noticed a Rockler pocket hole clamp on their website. Seemed it could be a useful clamp for those people who regularly use their Kreg Pocket Hold jig.

[Han]

Upscale wrote in news: [e-mail]:

trouble with subtle shifts when assembling.

[lenhow]

It seems to me that the screw will pull things together in the way this clamp works. What I have trouble with is keeping the faces flush. Using their vise grip style clamp (or any other clamp) solves that problem. Has anyone actually used this clamp and does it keep things flush?

[-MIKE-]

why didn't I patent that idea when I had it?"

[-MIKE-]

Looking at the cut profile view..

think it's impossible for the pieces to *not* be flush.

I like the vise grip clamp, too, but it doesn't allow you to rest the stock flat on the table, like this Rockler one? That's a huge advantage in my book.

The other advantage is they way it clamps box sides as shown here...

's how this thing rates a big FAIL for me... Why not make the clamp adjustment a spring-handle vise-grip style mechanism? Boooooooooooo!

Maybe they *did* design a vise-grip version that will come out in a year for 30 bucks.

[Robatoy]

What kind of residuals would one get if one did have the patent?

[-MIKE-]

[Lew Hodgett]

------------------- A solution waiting to find a problem to solve.

About as useful as a set of breasts on a boar hog.

Fails to solve the basic alignment problem of the pieces secured by the screw.

Lew

[-MIKE-]

By the way, it looks like something which could be easily fabricated from scraps, a 5/16" knob/bolt, and a t-nut/threaded insert, huh?

[-MIKE-]

I think it solves that problem, very well...

pieces are being held securely against the clamp, which keeps the faces flush.

[Evodawg]

I like that feature of this clamp. Always have a problem hanging the faceframe over the edge of the bench and trying to square it. Although it should square itself it everything is square to begin with.

Rockler is infamous for selling gimmicks that you don't need or don't work all that well.

[-MIKE-]

Or for pricing them *juuuuuust* high enough that you want to go out in the shop and build your own. :-)

[Robatoy]

So... what happens to the squeeze-out?

[-MIKE-]

well...

>>> Both pieces are being held securely against the clamp, which keeps the >> faces flush.

I suppose the same thing that happens to it on Kreg's bench clamping system. There seem to be less surface area covered by this Rockler clamp than Kreg's bench Klamp...

Here's another can of worms to open up.... According to Kreg, you don't even need glue with pocket joinery.

Personally, I'm too anal to not use glue. Last time I used pocket holes, however, I got pretty good with using "only enough" glue and had minimal, if any, squeeze out.

I figure, if NO glue is strong enough, then a LITTLE glue would be strong enough, too.

[Robatoy]

Makes sense.

[-MIKE-]

This thing lit a little fire in me... I'm working on a quick-n-dirty version, right now.

video to follow.

[Robatoy]

Would it involve a drum skin tensioner?

[-MIKE-]

No. :-)

Trying to visualize that.

I linked to the video in separate post.

[Charlie Groh]

...I got a couple of those things and they work OK...but I've gotten in the habit of clamping to my assembly table which puts bearing on the pieces totally...works more better, at least for me!

cg

[Larry Jaques]

On Mon, 8 Feb 2010 10:05:25 -0800 (PST), the infamous Robatoy scrawled the following:

Maybe a buck per? Definitely worthwhile.

-- In order that people may be happy in their work, these three things are needed: They must be fit for it. They must not do too much of it. And they must have a sense of success in it. -- John Ruskin, Pre-Raphaelitism, 1850