# 7 Tips for Better Clamping



## WoodworkingTalk (Dec 8, 2015)

> If you work with wood, you’re going to have to deal with clamps. That’s not a bad thing, though. Clamps are very useful tools and proper clamping will ensure that you get a better end product than you might otherwise produce. But just slapping some clamps on without thinking about what you’re doing can cause more harm than good to the time and effort you’ve put into a project. Here are a few tips to keep in mind next time you’re ready to break out the clamps for a project.


*Read More*:
http://www.woodworkingtalk.com/articles/7-tips-for-better-clamping/


----------



## FrankC (Aug 24, 2012)

Good basic advice, should help anyone starting out.


----------



## Tony B (Jul 30, 2008)

I did a lot of furniture refinishing and repair in addition to building. The most difficult repairs are usually chairs legs. 
many Chair legs have no flat surfaces and most surfaces are not parallel such as found in Queen Ann, tapered or round legs. Many restoration people use a rope and tourniquet. When gluing up chair legs, you don't usually have much time. Also because of the varied chair leg shapes, tourniquets can slip. I have always used *surgical tubing.* It is quick, easy to tie and lots of good tension from the stretching. I kept several different lengths and diameters with a loop eye tied at one end and hung on a hook. Just lay the eye on one leg, run the free end around the leg and through the eye and then run the free end around the other legs and tie off with usually a quick look and pull. You can loop around each leg if you need to. Surgical tubing is very high friction and rarely if ever slips or moves. It's the quickest and easiest way I know of to clamp all 4 legs at once around the stretcher area. 
The down side to surgical tubing is the cost. I always bought it by the roll from a local distributor. It also doesn't last forever. Wherever glue or epoxy gets on it it gets a little stiff and brittle. I would get at least a year out of the tubing pieces before they had to be discarded. If you do repair work for a living - the cost seems very cheap compared to the time you save. Oh, BTW, there are no clamp marks left behind.
So add some surgical tubing to your clamp arsenal.


----------



## Tony B (Jul 30, 2008)

Another alternative to clamps is the *Rub Joint*
Sometimes when I am setting up my bowl blanks, and I want to add a small block to the bottom to be turned as the base, my clamps just don't seem to reach far enough. If the bottom of the bowl blank is clean and flat and the bottom of your new base is clean and flat, just add some glue on to the bowl blank and a dab onto the base. Then just put the base in the approximate position and just rub the base back and forth on the bowl bottom blank. After only two or 3 rubs back and forth, you will see the excess glue coming out from the bottom of the base. Also you will notice that the base is getting very difficult to move. Usually it will only take about 10 back and forth movements till it just seems to lock itself in place. No clamps required.


----------

