Bessey or Sash?

[Chris Knight]

I'm with Senior. The notion of glue starvation through excessive clamping pressure has been overdone to the point of being mythologised. If you refer to the manufacturers' sites like Titebond, you will see that up to 250 psi clamping pressure is recommended for PVA in use with hardwoods.

 

[David C]

Glue starvation due to excess pressure, in edge joints for instance, is one of the classic old wives tales, of woodworking.

The gluing section of Bruce Hoadley's "Understanding woood" makes this quite clear.

The optimal forces / pressures he describes are very difficult to achieve without hydraulic presses.

David

 

[Anonymous]

Glue is very viscous and starts to soak into wood soon after applied. No amount of pressure from cramps tightened by hand is going to cause any issues at all.

I use cheap sash cramps (steel, not ali) and wind them up as hard as possible when laminating

 

[engineer one]

well i am always happy to be proved wrong, and learn something new
everyday.

so glue starvation is a myth :twisted:

none the less, i am certain that in most cases the pressure produced by the bessey clamp is more than enough to hold most joints that i will make tightly enough and long enough for the glue to take hold and dry. :lol:


and i do have some older record clamps, and find quick clamps more effective than the cheaper records i bought.

paul :wink:

 

[Paul Chapman]

I'm a clamp-head woman myself

Same here (but substitute bloke for woman :roll: ) although I prefer Record #130 (older pattern) to Paramo (but substitute a bolt and nut for the removable pin which tends to fall out at a crucial moment). They work really well, you can make them whatever length you like and I found that it was the only way to get enough sash cramps (you really cannot have too many) at an affordable price.

Cheers :wink:

Paul

 

[woodbloke]

I've got a few cramp heads (Marples and Record) on some oddments of stuff, quite useful for longer gluing jobs when needed - Rob

 

[George_N]

I have a couple of 1000 mm Besseys and I think they are the bee's knees. The only thing stopping me having lots more of them is the price. I find them so easy to use and well engineered. You can also extend the clamping length to almost double if you have a pair of them. Remove one moving jaw altogether and reverse the other. Then connect the tail ends together with a joining plate. Bessey make a joiner but you could probably make your own from a steel plate and a couple of bolts (not actually tried this but it is on the Bessey website somewhere).