What is the best clamp for a board 14” W x 20” L x .75” D? Would Oops clamps work? Board would be hardwood. Thanks, Mark
Blockquote
What system are you using to hold the clamp (i.e., T-slot,…?), and what operations are you doing (i.e., facing entire top surface,…?) ?
1 Like
Thanks for asking. I should have mentioned that I have t-tracks and will be carving pockets and profiles for electric guitar bodies and necks. The guitar body blank weighs 8-10 lbs.
Thanks.
Mark
1 Like
I do not have much experience with larger wooden stock like yours, as I mill mostly aluminum. The wood work I have done has been 2 sided 3D carves in smaller but thicker stock. For that I have used fixing bolts through the stock, but that is onto a fixture plate with M6 threaded holes using exact locations for the bolts.
Recently I purchased a set of Tiger Claw clamps from Carbide 3D for larger flat plates of aluminum stock. I really like them as they are low profile and apply a side and downward clamping force - they hold extremely well. They use M6 screws for both the fixed and adjustable clamps. These may work for you, but you may need to check the distances from the sides of your guitar stock to the T-tracks to see how much room there is. I think the adjusting clamp only gives about 20-25 mm of adjustment. The bolts you use for your T-track system may work for these clamps if they are 1/4".
Others may have options that are more applicable to your use case.
1 Like
Hey Mark,
The oops clamps work but have a limited screw length so are not the suitable for very thick blanks. On thick blanks you would use a helper block on the other end of the oops clamp.
The best clamping system is the vacuum table, because you have no clamps in the way that you could hit with your bit, but it is also the most expensive of all workholding systems. It however allows you to do things like this 
If you make solid-body guitar bodies and necks, you can use this two-side method described in this video. This avoids cutting into your vacuum table.
However they show a method without vacuum table, but with a wasteboard and indexing pins, the body and neck blanks are screwed into the wasteboard.
1 Like
I’ve been working on a custom bass these last few weeks and I’ve used the tape and CA glue method for every operation I’ve used, with dowel locating pins for any two sided operations. It’s worked a charm. I used three lengths of tape for the body and it’s the strongest clamp I’ve ever used.
Seems like from your post you might be batching products, which makes the tape method kind of tedious, but it’s super reliable in a pinch. And it has the added benefit of being able to complete thru contour cuts without the need for tabs. Having true full thickness finish and spring passes really helps minimize sanding after the fact.
I also use bench dogs and wedges for similar operations when I don’t need to worry about flipping the part. Picture attached for reference.
Thanks so much for all of your suggestions. I will investigate he options you mention. Mark
1 Like