This last week-end, I built a really slick way of solidly clamping parts together for gluing, without using clamps or using heavy weights.
The idea was to remove air from a bag, and let the weight of atmospheric pressure, "clamp" together the parts.
In the photo below, is a Lazy Susan used for playing the board game Dominion. Yes we use a router to give all the edges a "rolled" edge. It is made of four layers of Baltic Birch, pinned together with dowels and stained. Since the Lazy Susan is 2 feet in diameter, and my vacuum can create a 14 psi vacuum, the effective clamping pressure is the same as having a 3 ton press on top of the Lazy Susan (note: there are two Lazy Susan's in the bag - the second one is on the back side.). This is similar to what folks who work with veneers do.
What is really nice about this, is that we now have absolutely no more marring of our stained finishes due to clamps pinching the finished surface, and the surface pressure is uniformly distributed across the entire face of the parts.
The white surface you see below, is a fleece fabric used over the Lazy Susan, to allow the air to move over the face of the Lazy Susan to the port, where the air is dragged from the bag to the vacuum pump - I am using a "Saver Bag" from Zip Lock, which has a "Zip Lock" reusable seal on one edge. That seal means the bag is reusable for many projects.
My wife is delighted with how easy this is for her to use.
You can see the final Lazy Susan product and other fun things we make at: LinnellDesign dot com
Total cost was about $200.00 and a Saturday to build it. The black transformer was used to step up my line voltage to 230V to run my surplus purchased vacuum pump - all the other parts came from Home Depot.
Jim
The idea was to remove air from a bag, and let the weight of atmospheric pressure, "clamp" together the parts.
In the photo below, is a Lazy Susan used for playing the board game Dominion. Yes we use a router to give all the edges a "rolled" edge. It is made of four layers of Baltic Birch, pinned together with dowels and stained. Since the Lazy Susan is 2 feet in diameter, and my vacuum can create a 14 psi vacuum, the effective clamping pressure is the same as having a 3 ton press on top of the Lazy Susan (note: there are two Lazy Susan's in the bag - the second one is on the back side.). This is similar to what folks who work with veneers do.
What is really nice about this, is that we now have absolutely no more marring of our stained finishes due to clamps pinching the finished surface, and the surface pressure is uniformly distributed across the entire face of the parts.
The white surface you see below, is a fleece fabric used over the Lazy Susan, to allow the air to move over the face of the Lazy Susan to the port, where the air is dragged from the bag to the vacuum pump - I am using a "Saver Bag" from Zip Lock, which has a "Zip Lock" reusable seal on one edge. That seal means the bag is reusable for many projects.
My wife is delighted with how easy this is for her to use.
You can see the final Lazy Susan product and other fun things we make at: LinnellDesign dot com
Total cost was about $200.00 and a Saturday to build it. The black transformer was used to step up my line voltage to 230V to run my surplus purchased vacuum pump - all the other parts came from Home Depot.
Jim
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