Drill all the parts before you glue them together - pass a length of allthread through each set of holes and tighten the nuts. No external clamps required. If you like you can put another peice over the end of the althread, or better yet counterbore the outer boards and put plugs in on the "front" side to hide the fasteners. The workbench will NEVER split.
T/S, yes.
BTW, you don't buy a T/S, you buy the fence that goes on the T/S.
IMHO, the Delta Unifence is tough to beat.
Jointer, not yet.
A table top planer will be far more useful than a jointer and with a simple jig you can use the T/S to create straight glue lines, thus no jointer needed.
Clamps are like sex, you can never have too many.
For a glue-up, clamps every 12" works, but I like 6" better.
Start out with 30, 3" C-Clamps, 30, 4" C-Clamps, 20, 6" C-Clamps and
50, 2" Spring Clamps.After that 24-30, 24" Bar Clamps, 18-24, 3/4" Pipe Clamps (Down the road comes the high priced spread)
Find a plumbing supply house that will handle counter business.
These days, cut to length pipe nipples, threaded both ends, are a standard item.
Buy some 36" and 48" 3/4 black nipples and some 3/4 couplings so you can assemble any special long pipe clamps you need.
You just spent what a decent jointer will cost.
Stay away from Harbor Freight for the C-Clamps and the Pipe Clamps, but there bar clamps pass muster, especially when on sale.
When you are at Home Depot with a $10 bill burning a hole in your pocket, turn it into $1 each spring clamps.
A gallon of TiteBond II and you are ready to start to get ready to go.
Have fun.
Lew
If I understand the instructions for the workbench top, I would need about
10 bar clamps at least 32" in size or pipe clamps. Could you briefly explain why I will need SO MANY C-clamps (or were you just trying to make the point about how inordinately expensive a jointer would be)? I'll try to keep reading and learning.Thanks, Bill
Clamps create a source of point loading.
What you need for a glue-up is uniform loading.
The more clamps, the closer they are spaced.
The closer the clamp spacing, the more uniform the loading at the glue surface will be and the lower the individual clamp pressure needs to be.
As I said before, clamps are like sex, there is no such thing as too many.
Lew
Violin makers often make their own clamps with two small disks of wood, with a bolt several inches long, going through the two disks, and an elbow nut. The work is of course clamped between the two disks. I think they may use 30 or so at once. Before today, I thought that was alot! :)
Thinking about tools (including jigs and fixtures) is great, no? It seems to stimulate the mind in a satisfying way. I know that I don't know that much, but I feel good when I learn something new. I know that the first part of my previous statement is true because, as a brand new homeowner, I am encountering alot of how much I don't know lately... :)
When you use a whole bunch of clamps in a row, say like when making the benchtop, it seems like putting an extra board under a row of clamps would distribute that "point loading" into more uniform loading. Maybe it depends on the strength of the board? Still it seems like 1 clamp per foot is a reasonable minimum.
Bill
I found that jig here (I think) in case another reader is interested
that's absolutely correct... you get it.
Draw 2 lines at 45 degrees from the direction of clamping. This will define the area where you will get good clamping pressure. If you clam 2 6" boards together that will suggest clamps every 12 inches. If the boards are only 2 inches wide, optimally, you would want clamps every 4 inches.
-Steve
What could possibly go wrong with a C-clamp?
Steel too soft, frame bends when tightened. BTDT.
Two things--1: It bends. 2: The surface of the screw is bad enough that it can't be tightened properly.
The working end falls off the tightening screw.
I've had these things happen to me when I bought cheap clamps (from local hardware stores and not from Harbor Fright): C-clamps bending, the foot falling off, pipe clamp ends with no thread (I returned those), pipe clamps that slip when tightened.
The moral of the story is: don't buy cheap Chinese clamps, no matter where.
Luigi
PS I learned that the working end was called a foot here on the wreck when I called it a thingie.
In honesty, I've seen that happen on MIL-SPEC clamps. They'd seen forty years of hard service and been through a couple of wars when it happened but . . .
A drum sander doesn't have the feed rollers that a planer has, it has a conveyor belt underneath, and a fairly long table. So it is better at flattening than a planer if you flip it over after each pass. But it depends on how thick the stock is and how bad the problems were. It's much more effective to use a sled and shim under it and flatten one side then flip it over, that's really the only way to get it
*flat* if it was bowed or twisted to start with. But for something workbench top size it really should end up flat without much trouble as the thickness means it's not going to deflect very much. If you glue it up with a serious bow or twist in it then you may have issues, but if it's reasonable to start with it should end up pretty darn flat.But if that's what you have to resort to then I'd say you're better off buying a premade slab from Grizzly or Ikea.
-Kevin
This seems reasonable, but how did you decide on 45 degrees? I don't doubt that it's a good rule of thumb, I was just trying to make sense of it. Maybe the angle should be larger on hard boards and smaller on lighter ones?
Bill
"HeyBub" wrote in news:XKOdnVDTwOGdIh_XnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@earthlink.com:
I've never had any trouble with a HF C-Clamp. However, I work with mainly pine and damage to the wood occurs before they reach their breaking points. Like all HF tools, you are their quality control, so be wary.
We had some extremely cheap ones that had a cap on the screw. The cap would often fall off and the mechanism was terrible. They actually gained value when thrown in the trash, cause now they're not worthless C- clamps, they're garbage!
These days, I usually reach for an Irwin Quick Grip. The C-clamps are good when I need more clamping pressure or want to drive something hard in. When all you've got is C-clamps, they'll put nails in...
Puckdropper
...
Thanks Lew!
I didn't realize how valuable the suggestion above was when I first read it, but I visited WoodCraft today and I also was emailed come coupons from Harbor Freight today.
The price of a large bar clamp is about $40.00 at WC versus $4.99 on sale at HF, and I need a few more than several...
I'm not saying that they are the same exact product (at all), but HF makes buying a lot of bar clamps feasible for me.
Bill
Well, there are bar clamps and then there are bar clamps. I bought a bunch at Lee Valley a year or so ago, and thought I'd scored an incredible deal. 12 24" clamps for $75. I don't regret buying them, but it wasn't near the deal I thought it was. Light gage aluminum and it's showing its age already because I bear down on them a bit too much.
Like many here, I'd recommend starting off with some pipe clamps at first. 12", 24" and 36" to start, with maybe a couple of 4' thrown in. If you're on a budget, that's an excellent way to begin the addiction of clamp buying.
The thing about pipe clamps is that small nuculear bombs won't damage them, and they suffer through a fair amount of abuse. They're heavy, and that's a bit of a disadvantage, but you'll never regret having them.
Tanus
Your points are well taken. I was just thinking that it's too bad my new next door neighbor is not a woodworker, then we could share clamps, but, he is a plumber (and a nice guy too)! Maybe he knows where to get pipes? :) I can see I have a bit more homework to do.
My garage floor is badly stained too--from trans fluids, paint stains, and who knows what. And the previous owned did a lot of welding in the garage, so there is light "soot" around. Does anyone here know if I can hose down a stucco ceiling (with unpainted plastered walls), before I give it a paint job, or if should I just use a sponge and detergeant)? I've heard there are some good options painting the floor (epoxy-related)--I haven't learned yet how much prep they require.
Tanus, I haven't begun the addiction to clamp-buying yet, but the number of work bench tops and "shelves" I want to make increases the longer I think about design! And I expect for one set of clamps to suffice for the construction of all of them! :) I want my workshop to reflect my acquired respect for the crafts I am learning. People oft say the TS is the center of the workshop, but for me I think it's the workbench.
One quesiton that occurred to me is whether the glued Southern Yellow Pine is up to the task of supporting a machinist vise, with the pounding that goes along with it? I suppose it is, I just wanted to double check.
Sorry for so many questions.. BTW, I bought a 9" x 12" x 2" granite surface plate today (on sale from WoodCraft for $20). It's supposed to be accurate to .0001". It is satisfyingly Very Heavy. Maybe I'll store it in the base of my workbench for stability. Two or three more and one might regard a bench as immobile! :)
Cheers, Bill
If it's a real stucco coat, you can get it pretty wet without worry. If it's wallboard mud with sand in it that *looks* like stucco, you'll be depending on the paint to protect the mud. Most wallboard mud dissolves in water.
Yes, some of the floor products are good, but the good ones are very expensive, and the ones you buy at the big-box stores aren't the good ones. All of them need a good, clean surface to bond to, so you'll spend tons of time cleaning the concrete beforehand. You might even have to rent a concrete grinder. Before you make up your mind what to do, look at options like rubber tiles and roll coverings.
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