Pipe Clamp Tips and Tricks

[rick7938]

Although I would love to have a shop full of parallel clarmps, my budget only allows me to have a variety of pipe clamps. They work pretty well, but they do not always clamp with the jaws parallel, so they can deflect material glue-ups such as solid panels and mortise and tenon joints such that they are not level. I use cauls for the panels, but that does not always completely cure the problem.

Anyone have any tips or tricks to make these pipe clamps a little more user friendly?

Thanks for any feedback.

Originally Posted by DaveO

One thing that I have done while doing panel glue-ups, is not related to the clamping aspect, but if done right can help with many clamping problems.
First lay-out your boards that will be the panel in the best orientation. Mark their position. Then take each board and joint the edge with the opposite face against the jointer fence. By doing that if your jointer fence is off by as little as .5º that will be canceled out by one edge being 90.5º and the other being 89.5º. Then when all your boards are jointed stack them on edge on top of each other, as they will be glued together but in a vertical orientation. If the stack stands without leaning or wavering, you are ready for a glue up. Even spread of glue and firm but not Herculean clamp pressure, alternate clamps on the top and bottom.

MTCW,
Dave

Actually Dave I do this intentionally I learned a long time ago from a wise ole Jedi Master the +- 1 degree trick.

[Don Sorensen]

I recall reading a tip that involved 1" dowels at either clamp surface - re-directed the force of the clamp to parallel of the pipes...and prevented the Overtightening Syndrome that a fair number of us suffer. There may have been more to the article, but that was the essence of the shop tip.

[tom hintz]

Originally Posted by Don Sorensen

I recall reading a tip that involved 1" dowels at either clamp surface - re-directed the force of the clamp to parallel of the pipes...and prevented the Overtightening Syndrome that a fair number of us suffer. There may have been more to the article, but that was the essence of the shop tip.

The dowel trick is meant to prevent bowing of the panels by focusing the clamps force on the center of the wood being clamped. While it can in fact work, it can also make the bowing worse if the dowel is not actually centered on the thickness of the wood.

The dowels do not do anything to prevent over tightening unless they are made from something that will distort (rubber) rather than pass whatever force is being generated by the clamp on to the wood.