Aaargh....'bleeding' Axminster clamps

[RogerS]

Literally and metaphorically. Just unclamped a piece of furniture I'm working on and these f****** B******* C*** clamps have left these marks on the mahogany curl.



These are the culprits...they have soft jaws which encourages one not to use any intermediate packing pieces ......especially in the 'heat' of a major glue-up.

http://www.axminster.co.uk/axminster-ax ... prod809316

Only they leave a little souvenir.

So....question....I have one chance (if at all able to) remedy this situation. Mechanical sanding and hope it hasn't gone too deep? Solvent and risk spreading the 'souvenir' further.

Horrible, horrible, horrible bloody clamps. :evil: :evil: :evil:

 

[deserter]

I posted on the other forum, my response.

But basically I'd steam it out then scrape it smooth. Then deal with what's left when you apply your finish. You can use stains and pigment dye powders to disguise a mark like that.


~Nil carborundum illegitemi~

 

[AndyT]

That's really annoying! The urge to use "trademark" red to brand the product makes it unusable!

Before you send them back for a refund, you could clamp up an offcut and see if it makes another stain - then you will have a bit to practice stain removal on, before further damaging the thing you were building.

 

[MIGNAL]

I wouldn't try to steam that out. You might risk steaming the stain further into the wood. I'd be tempted to use a very sharp cabinet scraper. Whenever I've tried to deliberately dye wood I can't get it to penetrate much more than 0.3 mm's and quite often a lot less than that.
BTW I have the same clamp. I can't ever remember them leaving such a stain.

 

[CHJ]

This is not an unusual problem with so called soft 'rubber/plastic' grips.
I fitted a new door casement into a new stud wall in Germany (German doors and frames come as complete assembled units) and used some new metre long expanding jacks to keep the frame sides parallel whilst I sorted out the packing slips and bolted everything in place, left them in a couple of hours whilst expanding foam was applied to all the gaps prior to fitting final face architrave.
When removed the soft 75mm pads had stained the pre-finished wood veneer laminate, I can still see the stain shadow some 20 years later, presume it is the plasticises leaching out..

 

[RogerS]

Thanks for all the hints.

I took up the suggestion to clamp some test pieces and left two clamps (with very dusty surfaces) overnight. Gave me two blemishes. Light sanding removed them...big sigh of relief.

Now to get some cork to face the jaws.

 

[Eric The Viking]

I've a few of those. They've only done that once, after I used meths to clean the pads. ](*,)

Was the finish shellac, by any chance? If so, it might be that it was still gassing off the ethyl alcohol (meths).

I think they're brilliant though for general use. If you prefer green marks, Rutlands also sell them :-?

Glad you've sorted it. If not cork, greaseproof paper might be enough.

E.

 

[heatherw]

Or masking tape on the red bits, if it sticks.

 

[RogerS]

I've a few of those. They've only done that once, after I used meths to clean the pads. ](*,)

Was the finish shellac, by any chance? If so, it might be that it was still gassing off the ethyl alcohol (meths).

I think they're brilliant though for general use. If you prefer green marks, Rutlands also sell them :-?

Glad you've sorted it. If not cork, greaseproof paper might be enough.

E.

No pristine wood

 

[Eric The Viking]

Thanks Roger.

Forgive my ignorance: you said 'mahogany curl' but it looks quite light in colour: what wood was it?

I don't want to get caught out in the same way!

Also one hopes Axminster know and will put a note in with them - could be a really nasty problem if it's not spotted early enough. It's a shame as those pads work really well otherwise. They don't pick up grit too easily and they do seem to grip well. I've got other designs of F clamp, but I find myself using those more than any others, even when they're oversized for the job in hand, as they're so easy to use.

 

[RogerS]

Thanks Roger.

Forgive my ignorance: you said 'mahogany curl' but it looks quite light in colour: what wood was it?...

It is mahogany curl aka flame mahogany. Mahogany by itself has a huge range of colour and texture ...let alone the number of varieties. But to get the grain to show needs stain and then you get this