Cheap, Free, or at least reasonable Glue Clamps

Ingenuity is alive and well. I used rubber bands alot when doing dollhouses and it makes perfect sense to use bigger rubber bands (if you can get them) for bigger things. Definitely a technique to remember.

-- Working at Woodworking www.VillageLaneFurniture.com

Russell I guess that you could use bicycles tires and cut them the long way around. But you wouldn’t get many circles but you could sure get them quite long.

-- What happens in the workshop stays in the workshop. No wait that doesn't sound right. Karson Southern Delaware karson_morrison@bigfoot.com †

Ingenuity

-- jeanmarc manosque france

Ata boy, Karson. That’s good ole American ingenuity at it’s best. This is a great way to clamp. I use the bike tubes cut the short way for small items. Everybody should be putting this one in the methods of work, if they don’t do it already. Thanks for the post.

-- Tim -- http://tmuli.com

Karson that is a great idea. I too have used rubber bands as well as bungy cords, but I didn’t think of using tire tubes.

Another one that I have had some success with is ratcheting tie down straps.

-- Kevin, Wichita, Kansas

Hi Karson;

Try keep track of how many miles you get out of ‘em.

Great idea!

Lee

-- by Lee A. Jesberger http://www.prowoodworkingtips.com http://www.ezee-feed.com

Great Innovation and head thinking buddy. I’ll have to keep that one in mind. But where the hell do you find inner tubes these days???hahahaha

-- Rich, Nevada,

Posts from Karson and Niki on the same day. Good stuff.

-- "Bordnerizing" perfectly good lumber for over a decade.

My Grandpa used to have a line that he said all the time, “Heck, I’ll take anything that’s free!” His blood runs in me, GREAT POST!!!

I would not have thought of using tire tubes as clamps… Thanks Karson!

-- As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another. (Proverbs 27:17) †

Great idea Karson but I think $0.00 is a bit expensive, just kidding. LOL. Thanks for the post. Those cheap stretch bands are’nt too bad either.

-- Grumpy - "Always look on the bright side of life"- Monty Python

Lee:

You can see from the last picture I got less life than Goodyear got from their NASCAR tires this weekend. But of course they were using tires, but 10 laps is not bad for a set of tires. I mean that’s 25 miles before they started to blow out.

While I was only using tubes.

-- What happens in the workshop stays in the workshop. No wait that doesn't sound right. Karson Southern Delaware karson_morrison@bigfoot.com †

FYI Many tractor and farm wagons (etc) use tubes and tire dealers probably change them for thier customers. Finding one that keeps them may take some doing but then if disposial of tubes is as regulated as tires mabey not. either way a little time invested in pr with a local dealer would probably result in having a few saved for you.

-- RTB. "dumb animals are not stupid they simply can't talk "

Thanks for the innovative tip and good luck with the cabinets.

-- Bob Lance, DE

Hey Karson;

I’m glad to hear you going with the European style cabinets. No face frames saves on materials. ( not that your stash of lumber couldn’t use some thinning). lol

Maybe you should visit me in the shop and we can slice up the sheet goods and do the inline boring. Between the two us us I bet we could get a lot done

You can also use the hinge machine for the doors.

Lee

-- by Lee A. Jesberger http://www.prowoodworkingtips.com http://www.ezee-feed.com

Lee I think I’m going to take you up on your offer. There are some things I want or need to do here at home, because of the length of time like veneering the pieces etc.

We’ll talk.

-- What happens in the workshop stays in the workshop. No wait that doesn't sound right. Karson Southern Delaware karson_morrison@bigfoot.com †

I use surgical elastic tubing, like the one used for blood giving. They are not free, but they are cheap and they tie and untie very easy.

-- Zipsss

When I glue a hardwood strip to an edge of plywood, I use a different technique.

Rip a hardwood strip that is more than twice the width of the desired edge and glue it between two pieces of plywood. This requires only a few clamps. Then simply rip the panel down the middle giving you two panels.

I find that this also saves some time since you are getting two panels with one glue-up.

-- "A goal without a plan is a wish."

I’ll agree with Zipss, surgical tubing works great. You can vary the amount of pressure by the tension. For smaller jobs, I’ll use blue painters tape to hold down edging.

Tom

-- Anybody can become a woodworker, but only a Craftsman can hide his mistakes.

Ze’ev:
Tom I’ve used surgical tubing for irregular glue ups. I tried one and it was going to require about 10 ft of tubing to be able to go down one panel of my cabinet. I was wanting to go a little faster. Regular pipe clamps allowed me to do four sides at one time. I could only do two sides with the surgical tubing that I have.

Here I’m using it to glue the base to the back of the cradle. These pieces are mounted at a 7 deg angle and regular clamps wouldn’t work.

I was really looking for something fast and cheap. I’ll get about 50 slices off one tube that I got free. I got two sizes 9” tube will stretch to about 18” and a 12” tube that stretches to about 26” Large enough to glue an edge band on a 24” wide cabinet side. and with 50 slices I can do about 10 sides at a time.

But, saying that I appreciate the comments because others might not have been aware of using surgical tubing.

Ampeaer. I’ve done what you suggested before also. Usually when I did that I was putting a thicker piece of wood. In this case I’m gluing about a 1/8” slice on the edge of the plywood. I resawed them from solid stock on the bandsaw. so I was able to get more slices from a given amount of wood. Thanks for that suggestion, again others might not have heard of doing facing strips like that. The blue tape idea is also worth mentioning. It’s a nice easy thing to do and usually in reach.

A couple great ideas for methods of work.

-- What happens in the workshop stays in the workshop. No wait that doesn't sound right. Karson Southern Delaware karson_morrison@bigfoot.com †