Arts and Craft Bed Build - Clamps
Came time to glue up at least one assembly and looked at my clamps. Time for the dry assembly portion of the foot board. Decided to start with the smallest assembly to glue up.
Clamps promotion
I've got a few clamps, of different types. The different types of project have driven the type and length. One exception to this was when I bought my jointer. A few years ago. When I decided to buy my jointer, a promotion with Delta and Bessey, where kits of parallel clamps that were "given" per certain amount that you spent on Delta equipment.
Well the jointer landed my I believe about 4 kits of Bessey clamps of different sizes. I believe that the kits were sets of 4 clamps. You don't say no to "free" sets of clamps, specially part of a promotion like this one.
Out of the combination that I got that day, there are some clamps that I use more (24 inches) which are more useful based on the glue ups that I do. Some I never used up until this morning (50 inches).
When I did the dry assembly with clamps, I started to look at was was required to put pressure at the appropriate places. I used the most 24 inches for the vertical members, that worked fine but to clamp the legs to the rest of the assembly, I taught I could use the 40 inches but no, were not long enough.
To the long clamps
I am happy that I got 2 clamps of 50 inches which enabled me to complete the glue up of the assembly into one shot. Otherwise, I would of needed to go out and spend some money for new clamps. Or be creative.
Gratefully, I don't do crazy glue-ups or too many concurrent glue-ups that I need many clamps in one session. But if push comes to shove, I would without any doubt.
Disclaimer
I got Bessey K-Body clamps as part of the deal and did not cost me anything (other then the jointer but that's a different story). I never really tried other brand for me to compare. They work for me. Are others as functional, most probably, just never had the occasion to try them and buy them to try them out and do a compare. As I mentioned, I am satisfied with the amount I have now. If I need to buy more, I might go out and look at other that do similar clamps and take a look.
Foot Board Glue-up