Quote:
Originally Posted by HemiEd
Do you use biscuits or dowels when merging the stock? I bought a dowel jig and use three spaced evenly and it seems to do the trick. I bought some pretty good long clamps, two 24s and two 36s that have been great. Believe it or not, Walmart has a pretty good little clamp for the small stuff for about three dollars and I have about a dozen of those. I will end up with 10 or so clamps on a piece once it is glued up. Here is a picture with a few clamps on but many more were put on.
My planer is a Dewalt and it says the blades can be reversed. I haven't had to do it yet but the white oak is sure making me think about it.
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Dowels but I don't have a jig or anything; I put them on the press and put a stop in there for depth.
I should just spend a few bucks on a biscuit joiner; I've used one a handful of times and have always been impressed by the results.
Your clamp pattern is useful there, as is the idea of using scrap to form an 'edge' on the ends. I try to do something similar but it's more scattershot. I should probably just get more pipe clamps so I can get a better hold. I don't have a good reason not to; my new bench has a 4x6 work surface so I have plenty of room to operate, especially as my table saw has a nice extension table and my assembly table is my outfeed table so I can 'borrow' space from the cast-iron top on the saw or even the extension table as needed.
I have far more shop/tool than I have the skill for is the bottom line and all I can do to address that is keep failing forward. I was looking to make some mobile tool tables (want to build a new rolling table with folding sides for my slider, for instance) and my buddy just looks at me like I'm an idiot and says "guys with 800 sq foot workshops don't need mobile tools; design your space better".
Oh.