Rockler doesn't want you to see this video

penal glue UPS used to stress me out that's because I was always worried about keeping the panels flat of course the best way to do that is by using calls hello can someone come over here and help me with this glue up no not that kind of call uh never mind a call consists of two flat pieces of rigid material you sandwiched the glued up panel between these two pieces and that holds everything flat while the glue dries which works great until it doesn't did I glue this call to the board so I set my mind to figuring out a better kind of call to the lab they had to be glue resistant they had to be super flat and super rigid they had to be quickly adaptable to any size they had to be quick and easy to set up and use and most of all they had to be cheap and I came up with an idea from the electrician tray this idea is super simple I mean like stupid simple and you can make these in less than 30 minutes using only one tool let's talk about it [Music] hey everybody hola amigos Lee here for busted knuckle Woodworks and today we're talking about using calls when doing panel glue UPS we'll go over some of the Alternatives available then I'll show you the call setup I use when doing panel glue ups and best of all I'll show you how to make these yourself it's super quick and easy using readily available hardware and only one tool really that's it and if you watch until the end I'll show you some extra fancy options you can add to these so if you're anything like me you've probably done this two sticks of hardwood a couple of f clamps and you're good to go now as we learned at the beginning of this video this is not a glue resistant solution so you'd obviously want to add something to prevent gluing your call to the panel clear packing tape works well or blue painters tape or wax paper or those little doilies your wife keeps under the house plants and this isn't a bad solution except the clamps can be pretty fussy they tend to slide around a lot and can be tricky to keep in place the next step up from this is to make the clamps an integral part of the setup to do that cut a slot into the end of each call then take your F clamps you'll see there's a small nib here at the end that prevents the clamp from sliding off the bar you'll want to grind those off then slide the clamp bar into the slot and Slide the end back onto the bar these are definitely easier to handle the clamps won't get squirrely on you but this solution is far from perfect for one thing you don't have any flexibility as to where to place the clamping Force it's always going to be here at the ends ideally you want the clamping force to be applied as close to the panel as possible especially with these wooden calls otherwise they can Flex or even break of course the tool industry immediately recognizes as an opportunity so naturally they did what they do best came up with an over engineered overpriced solution that nobody needs so now let me show you how I do calls you'll generally need at least a pair of these so to make two you'll need some stuff four half inch coarse threaded carriage bolts five inches is a good place to start if you're gluing up something thicker you can easily swap in longer bolts four half inch washers four half inch Wing knots and finally the thing that makes this all work this is called super strut and this comes straight out of the electrical industry it's what electricians use to build modular framing systems to support fixtures cable pipe conduit that sort of thing this stuff is super strong it's actually made you support thousands of pounds it's galvanized so it won't rust it's glue and chemical resistant it's not painted so there's no finish to peel off or mark up your work and there are already holes punched in it every two inches which as you'll soon see is super handy and best of all you can find this stuff anywhere all your big box home improvement stores carry super strut in the electrical section and if you don't have one of those near you any electrical supply Outlet will carry this too super struck generally comes in two lengths either two feet or 10 feet you can make shorter calls with the two foot lengths but it's always cheaper to buy the 10 foot lengths and just cut it yourself it also comes in two thicknesses 12 and 14 gauge I'd recommend the 12 gauge if you're making longer calls otherwise stick to the 14. you'll save yourself a bit of money too to prepare these you'll need to cut these 10 foot lengths 110 footer will get to a pair of two and a half foot calls two ten Footers will get you a pair of five foot calls you get the idea and as I mentioned at the beginning you can use a hacksaw for this but if you can I suggest you cheat and use an angle grinder instead it's faster and way more fun look at all those Sparks pretty so if you've been paying attention you can probably see where I'm going with this first push a bolt up through one of these holes in the super strut The Carriage on a half inch bolt is of course half an inch the holes in the super strut are also half an inch wide this will prevent the bolt from spinning a washer on top and then the wing nut thread the nut down part way but leave plenty of slack for now position The partially assembled call where you want on the panel then set up another bolt on the other end in the same manner if your panel is narrow or you make your calls extra long you'll want to choose a hole that's fairly close to the work evenly snug up the wing nuts in such a way that the top strut stays level you don't need to crank down on this like it owes you money just what I call Double ugga tight should do [Music] now as I mentioned I'll show you a few additional options because you really do have a lot of flexibility as to how you can configure these for example if you really do want to torque down on these extra hard for some reason you can go for a half inch hex nuts and a box end wrench and go to town if you like you can swap these half inch bolts for 5 16 bolts and use these super awesome cam clamps if you really want to make these extra fancy they do sell these blue plastic end caps they only cost a couple of bucks totally optional of course and one more thing I find if you apply a little wax to these it helps make them even more glue resistant and there you go a practical DIY solution it gets the job done and we didn't break the bank pretty sweet if you ask me I'm Lee from busted knuckle Woodworks adios amigos time to glue up some more panels [Music] uh [Music] don't you think that Wood's a little green [Music] ah I think I'll be fine [Music]

Channel: Busted Knuckle Woodworks

Views: 845,185

Keywords: woodworking, cauls, glue, panels, table, furniture, diy, superstrut, cam clamp, tools, clamps

Id: vzhILT7axcA

Length: 9min 26sec (566 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 26 2023