Any woodworkers?

MDF makes for great work tops! And easily replaced when the top layer is worn out.

 

the weight is what i really like. gonna be using some soon for a lathe stand, so will be interesting to see how that goes getting a sheet into the tacoma.

 

What thickness of MDF at 4 layers deep? Are you talking about a wood lathe or a metal lathe?

 

3" thick with the 3/4" MDF for the workbench top. the lathe stand will be for my wood lathe. that'll be 2 layers of MDF for the top from what i remember that i drew up, with a nice beefy carcass underneath.

 

I've had many 2x benches over the years. I'm finally making the bench I want! And I will beat on it and use it as a bench, they are only new once!.

 

Not likely as critical for a wood lathe, but you can also consider a lower kick shelf and fill with sand or add sand bags to reduce vibrations.

 

yeah, i've got already-built drawers for a crapton of tools, then a buncha other accessories. once i get all that in there i'll see how it looks and if i wanna add any more weight to it. right now, it's just on a very basic stand i added some additional support to, and it's been fine for what i've done on there. it's not a MONSTER lathe either -- a record power coronet herald.

 

I finally got the last of the 3 sections in the clamps tonight after work. It's been a lot of work to get to this point. But it's been enjoyable.

Next I'll plane all 3 sections to the same thickness, should all end up at 3.5" thick.

 

You should go much thicker, more mass would be so much more stable!





(Kidding of course, looks freaking awesome!)

 

lookin' forward to seeing the end result! never too many clamps, or too much glue!

 

I like what I’m seeing, following the progress.

 

Yes, as much as I like Dewalt stuff, it looks like the Festool track saw, but really the track itself, is the most widely used? If that's true, then I'd probably go that route since it will give the most options for aftermarket accessories.

 

if you poke around a bit, you can probably find which ones are compatible. i've got the dewalt router setup and it fits fine on my makita tracks. am jealous of the cordless versions that weren't around when i got mine. ridgid's got one out now too.

 

wait till you see my legs

 

Why is it recommended to have some clamps facing up and some down? Are they not all exerting force in the same direction? I've seen this a lot and have been wondering. Admittedly, I've not done a lot of glue ups. Is there a rule of thumb as far as how many clamps you need for X number of inches of glue up? Do you need an equal number of right side up and upside down clamps?

Thanks for any help you can offer.

 

So the issue is when the clamp bends along the bar and this can cause a slight bias that pushes away from said bar, but I've mainly only worried about that when using pipe style clamp or parallel clamps, and when gluing up a flat panel. Something like what he is doing with his bench glue up I wouldn't worry to much about . It's just kinda good practice to evenly space out clamps along the surface and alternating them, top and bottom, sometimes facilitates this. You can never have too many clamps...but you can definitely squeeze to hard which can warp, bend, or deflect the wood and also squeeze out all the glue.

 

Good points. All I’ve read and seen about gluing up panels is that too much clamping force is the #1 reason they come out warped/cupped.
It’s my understanding that you use enough pressure to get a little bit of glue squeezing out of the joint(s) and that’s it. I’m this case, the minimum is better and more is definitely not better.
Am I on the right track?

 

An illustration of what’s going on. I use this basically to figure out how many, but I’ve never had a problem with a few less.


I use cauls during glue up to help keep things flat. I have found that F clamps like these orange ones tend to bend. More so, the cheaper lighter duty ones. Not so much these specific ones. :

In theory parallel clamps are suppose to stay relatively parallel, but as others stated, cranking down on them can cause warping and bow. Theres a few YouTube videos on parallel clamps that compares and looks at the actual parallelness (I made that word up) different brands. I think it was woodwhisper or something like that.

So essentially things to look into:
Cauls during clamping
Clamp pressure
and clamp type