Wood-working for Beginners: A Manual for Amateurs

by Charles G. Wheeler

Fig. 490.

You can contrive home-made clamps out of any strong pieces of wood of suitable length, by nailing or screwing a block at each end (Fig. 490), when the work can be tightly wedged to a close bearing by driving home the double wedge shown, using, if necessary, one or more blocks, B, when you use the clamp for smaller work than that for which it was made. By keeping such clamps for future use, you will soon have enough to answer very well until you can afford to buy the regular cabinet-clamps.

On the same principle, a simple clamp, derived from the Orient, can be made by boring a series of holes in two stout strips—just as the holes are bored in the sides of a ladder, but nearer together. The work to be glued is laid on one of these strips in the same way as shown in Fig. 490. The other strip is then placed directly above and stout pins put through corresponding holes outside of the work, which can then be wedged against the pins in the way just shown.

Another way, which can be applied to many cases, is to put a stout cord, doubled, around the work, and inserting a stick between the two parts of the string, turn it around until, the doubled cord thus becoming shortened, the parts of the work are drawn together. This can only be done where there is room to swing the stick around, as, for example, to tighten the rounds of a chair by drawing the legs together (Fig. 491).

Fig. 491.

Fig. 492.

You can often apply pressure, when no more convenient means are at hand, by making use of the elasticity of a board or pole. Suppose, for example, you need to press two blocks tightly together, as shown in Fig. 492. Place them on the bench or floor and spring in a board or pole between the top of the upper block and a beam of the floor above, as shown. Of course this board must be a little longer than merely to reach between the two points, as it must be sprung into place bent, when in the effort to straighten itself out again it will cause pressure on the blocks. Pieces should be placed outside the blocks when scarring of the surface is to be avoided. The pressure can be applied in any direction, always supposing that you have something firm to press against.

Pressure can often be obtained by a lever, and many applications of the wedge will suggest themselves in your work. Even if you have a shopful of clamps and hand-screws and vises, these applications of the simple mechanical powers often come into play (see Fig. 390). See also page 71.