Thread: Clamping jig - Thoughts please!

Not one to give up on an idea easily, I spent a few hours working out how to make this thing viable and it turned out better than I could have hoped. Because I can't upload video to the forum, I pulled the finger out and created a page on my website covering all the details so I'm only uploading the one pic here and you can visit the website to see the video and other pics. The video only goes for 21 seconds as that's all it takes so there's no excuses for not watching it. I've also made the Sketchup drawing available there if anyone is interested.
Click here to go directly to the page and scroll down to the video at the bottom of the page.

With all those chains it might need you to explain to guests that it's a woodworking device...

But looks great in its final form.

I've made many boxes, dovetail not mitred corners so bit different clamping.
I use Bessey quick action clamps on 4 sides. A piece of timber vertically, the length of the width to exert even pressure.
I also fit temporary pieces (spacers) of timber exact interior sizes to stop the clamps from exerting pressure unevenly and opening the joint at outer edges of corners.
The clamps are back behind the pins.
Keeping square was never an issue with that setup.
If not square, backing off a particular clamp rectified things quickly.

The clamping levers turned up this morning and did the trick perfectly - no slipping of the side-blocks at all now and they don't interfere with attaching the chain. That brings the total spend on this project to $39.85 . . . $3.95 for the chain and the rest on the clamping levers . . . I doubt you can buy a single parallel clamp for that

with-clamping-lever.jpg