Wood’n Bits Workshop

Q&A: Why Do You Use Those Crappy Clamps?

Larry | March 23, 2010

One of the problems with discussing woodworking in blog posts is that we tend to concentrate on a single aspect, discussing it in isolation from all other parts of woodworking methods and choices. This will be an exception in that I can’t answer a question about clamp choice without discussing other choices I’ve made.

On several occasions, when I’ve pictured my ratchet clamps in use, people have written and asked “Why do you use those crappy clamps?“ I chose that way of depicting the question as it was less inflammatory than some other ways the question has been asked. To those who were simply rude and justifying to themselves why they’d spent $500 on a rack full of Bessey K-bodies, [sound of a raspberry being blown here]. To those who genuinely wanted to know why (if?) one should use ratchet clamps, what follows is my reasoning and the reasons why I can/do use these clamps often.

1) They’re cheap.

There is no doubt that if you decide that you need to equip your shop with a bunch of modern “K-block” clamps, you’re going to spend a bundle on them. If money is no object, they do look nice when hanging in a wall shelf and they undoubtedly do a fine job of squishing joinery together. Push-button ratchet clamps on the other hand are cheap, particularly the smaller ones.

2) They’re handy in my shop.

This is a situation unique to my shop but others could do the same thing. Right above my work area is a small wood rack. To it are attached all my ratchet clamps. When I need them I can reach up, push the button on a clamp and it’s in my hand and ready to use. Maybe it’s cuz I’m lazy but not having to get the clamps before I start a glue up works for me.

3) Because of the way I work, I don’t need lots of clamping pressure.

Here’s the important stuff. Here is also where clamp usage and other woodworking decisions converge and where the discussion becomes more diffused. Because of the things I do prior to glue ups, and the glues that I use, I simply don’t need as much clamping pressure as many seem to think they need in their work. In my opinion, if you need a lot of pressure to pull a joint together, the joint is ill-fit but I’m not here to preach. Here are a couple of the factors that allow me to achieve tight joinery without a lot of clamping pressure.

a) Prep the joinery by hand

Power tools are great for a lot of things but it you want tight joinery, hand tools bring much to the table, presuming you’ve practiced enough use them. On this last limitation, I am still a work in progress and must defer to many others who are my superior when it comes to hand tool use. Still, I can create joints that have no gaps between the two parts being joined.

With hand tools, there are things one can do to eliminate glue-up problems. For instance, if you match-plane the edges of two boards you’re going to glue up, the two boards will fit together so well that clamps are not needed to pull the joint together (see below). For those unfamiliar with match-planing this amounts to jointing the edges with the two boards clamped together. You use a jointer plane in the same way you would for one board but by doing the two boards simultaneously you will achieve a perfect match of the two boards as they come together. Similarly, fitting tenons to a mortise can be done .001″ at a time with the use of hand planes.

b) Glue choice – the most important parameter

Beyond working with hand tools, however, much less clamping is required if one shuns slippery, aliphatic resin glues in favor of hide glue as your primary glue. Aliphatic resins replaced hide glues in production shops because 1) they are far cheaper, 2) require less maintenance when used in volume, and 3) clamping is less of a problem in a shop that using fixtures to clamp pieces on a production line. But these glues bring to the cabinetmaker, creating pieces one at a time, are glue joints that will slip, creep, and where the glue does not hold the joint together and so joints must be clamped and clamped tightly.

By contrast, hide glue is a very tacky substance that is not slippery and actually pulls the joint together as it sets. And hot hide glue will hold a joint in place almost immediately as when the glue temperature 20-30C, it will sets, holding the joint together. While complete setting of the glue requires several hours just like aliphatic resins, you don’t have to hold the joint in place while that happens.

If you’ve heard about “rub joints”, once commonly used by cabinetmakers, this is why they work. You simply slap hide glue on two parts, rub them together and walk away with no clamps whatever. To see good examples of this I urge you to check out podcasts by Rob Roziaeski over at the Logan Cabinet Shoppe. Podcast #17 (attached knee blocks without clamps) and Podcast #18 (does a panel glue up without clamps). If all you’ve ever used are yellow glues, you have to see the process to believe it.

And so, while “cheap” and “convenient” are part of the answer to why I can and do use ratchet clamps, the real reason is that I “can” because of the methods I use. More and more people are embracing hide glue, realizing its virtues. If you’d like to investigate it, you might start with some of my earlier posts on hide glue:

Hide Glue Part One

Hide Glue Part Two

Stephen Shepherd’s Hide Glue Book

Fish Glue

Keeping Hide Glue Warm

Are there times when I need more clamping pressure? Sure. If I were laminating a bunch of 2x4s together to create a bench top I’d drag out my pipe clamps, my F-body clamps, and I wouldn’t have enough of them. But for most things I don’t need any more pressure than those “crappy clamps” provide me.

Cheers — Larry

Category: Q&A, Tools, Woodworking | 8 Comments »
Tags: Chisels, Craftsmanship, Glue, Hand Planes, Hand Tools, Joinery, Techniques

Q&A – Will You Be Selling Your Tablesaw?

Larry | February 3, 2010

Several people asked me that question as I’ve made comments about my tablesaw being little more than a table in my shop as, more and more, I use handsaws to do my work. The short answer is “No.”. The not so short answer is “Heck No!” But the only answer worth writing about is a bit longer still.

Admittedly one can discuss the value of a table saw forever and not find common ground that all woodworkers would agree with so I’ll only talk from my perspective.

I’m not one who believes there is anything more ‘pure’ or ‘better’ about using hand tools exclusively any more than I believe another common view that power tools are the only way to be precise in one’s work. I bought my first table saw because I grew up in the Norm-era, watching the New Yankee Workshop. I read all the books that told me that “the table saw is the center of any woodworking shop.” I believed it. I no longer do. THAT, in a nutshell is my “philosophy” about table saws.

But my planer isn’t the center of my woodworking shop either but I wouldn’t sell it. My lathe isn’t the center of my woodworking shop and you’ll not pry it from my dead cold hands. Once purchased, I see little reason to get rid of a table saw. But it is true that the table saw requires more space than any other tool in the shop. It is also the most dangerous and messy tool in a shop. The multitude of jigs and fixtures required to do things with it exacerbates the space problem. We often ignore these downsides of table saw ownership. Particularly those with small shops should keep these in mind before accepting the need to own a table saw.

Most jobs the table saw does can be done quite well on a bandsaw or by hand, often in less time. When people imply in forums the need for this tool in cabinetry I have to chuckle as much fine furniture was created during the 17th and 18th Centuries without table saws. It wasn’t until the mid- to late-19th Century that table saws became common and even these did not provide the precision of the modern table saw. Take a look at my blog header for an indication of what early 19th Century table saws looked like and think of the “precision” one could achieve with such a device. Modern table saws are marvelous, but several centuries of furniture production have demonstrated that they are not required to produce fine furniture.

But, Chippendale and Hepplewhite produced their furniture from solid wood exclusively. They had none of the plywoods and composites we currently have available to us. When one starts working with any of these modern materials, a table saw is far superior to any hand tool. When I want something built from plywood, MDF or some other constructed material, I don’t reach for my Disston saws. The top comes off my table saw and I put it to work. If I’m cutting ply inserts for frame-and-panel construction, the table saw will get the nod for cutting those panels even though I’m using hand tools to create the rails and stiles.

So, will I be selling my table saw? No. But if I had it to do over again, I probably wouldn’t own one. I’d much prefer to own a large bandsaw and have the room devoted to my tablesaw available for other things. I might own a track saw for cutting plywood. These days, however, I’m content with having my tablesaw shoved out of the way and used as an assembly table, abeit an expensive one.

Cheers — Larry

larry@woodnbits.com

Category: Q&A, Tools | 8 Comments »
Tags: Philosophy, Power Tools, Table Saw

Q&A – Preventing scratches on sanded surfaces

Larry | January 31, 2010

When I started this blog my thoughts were to record some of the activity in my shop. To be honest, there wasn’t much thought about that either. It just seemed the thing to do at the time and I had no expectations that anyone would care to read it.

It seems I was wrong. The readership of the blog has grown to the point where I’m exceeding my bandwidth limits and I’m wondering how to pay for more. More important, though, are the email dialogs that have come from the posts. Because (or maybe in spite of) my ramblings, people have taught me things and asked me questions. Hopefully some of my answers have proven useful.

Assuming that occasionally the questions asked and answers given are not unique to the particular person asking the question, I’ve decided to add a new sort of blog post to the Wood’n Bits blog – a Q&A post where I answer some question asked by a reader. I’ve thought about whether or not to include the name of the questioner and have decided against it. Some might like this and some may not and I don’t want to have to go back to each person to gain their approval. Let it suffice to say that questions are the backbone of most useful dialog and I appreciate all that have come my way. I thank you all for the support you’ve shown this blog and hope that you’ll continue asking whatever questions come to mind.

When I’m sanding I often get scratches on the back side of the piece as it rests on the bench. How do you avoid this?

One can buy special sanding mats that help prevent this, but I find them problematic as after they’ve been used a lot they end up with dirt and sawdust imbedded in them and that causes nearly the same problems as the bench itself.

I use semi-disposable rubberized drawer lining material instead. You can buy it in rolls at the dollar store. At a buck a roll it won’t break the bank and will allow you to throw away any pieces that become really dirty.

I don’t want to exaggerate my level of organization with respect to this stuff but I generally have several pieces laying around and these pieces have seen differing amounts of use. The dirtiest pieces get used when I’m rough sanding something or working on it early in the construction/assembly process. The closer I get to a ready-to-finish piece, the more I gravitate towards a clean piece of the stuff.

Here I’m installing a glass panel and the pieces that hold it in place. I’ll be doing a bit more finish sanding to the surface laying on the rubber but it is largely devoid of scratches and thus it sits on very clean material. I apologize for the quality of the image but it was the only one I had of the rubber material in use.

While I’m talking about it I’ll throw in a bit of a rant against fancy hardwood benches that people like to build. They do provide a stage for showing off one’s woodworking expertise but building a bench that is harder than the pieces you’re going to build on it has a couple downsides. The first is that the hard surface is hard on the parts you’re creating. Hardwood surfaces are also more slippery, allowing the parts to move around more and possibly adding to scuffing and scratching problems. Just a thought, though I feel as though I should duck as I say it.

Cheers — Larry

larry@woodnbits.com