Clamping Cauls from Scrap 2x4s

Dave, what's the deal with cauls? Where do you use these babies? Well, obviously in glue-ups, and the longer ones I'll use, for example, putting an edge on a piece of plywood. 'Cause it's hard when you're banding plywood, and you'd have to have a clamp about every inch in order to really get it to close. Right, 'cause the edging is so thin, it doesn't...

Spread its own weight. Right, so this spreads out the clamping pressure evenly, and allows you to get by with fewer clamps so you can do more with less. And they're just, they're handy in general. Now, I have a series of sizes here. These are all made from scrap two by fours.

So that's pretty cool that in their first life, these were dimensional two by fours. And once the machining process. Some of them still have the nail holes in it. Well, I'll take them, I'll cut 'em to length, and then the length that I want, 23 inches I use typically for like a kitchen base. And in that case, what we're talking about is drawing the case side and the case side against the bottom shelf.

Just like this. Yep. Because it's so hard to get a clamp, obviously, in the middle of something wide and deep like that. And if you don't, it's possible that the case side, with the shelf being here, the case side is bowed out in the center because you don't have clamp pressure. Yup, so what I do is I'll cut the two by fours, and of course they're not necessarily known for being nice and straight and true.

Come on. But I will then take them to the joiner and planer, and just take them down to where they're nice and true and square. Is part of the key to this working that they have to be older two by fours, so they've had the opportunity to maybe sit around for a while, they've been in the shop for a while, acclimated a little bit? Yeah, if you use new ones, you want them to sit around the shop and acclimate for a while, 'cause they'll move on you. So the point of that is don't go buy four two by fours and make them into cauls tomorrow.

Well, the other thing I like is old two by fours, the grain is much tighter, the wood is much denser. I mean, you can just see it on this piece versus this guy. Yeah. Well, and you can, yeah. The densitometer is, or the weightometer.

All right, so you joint 'em, plane 'em, cut 'em. Yup, and then, you know, I'll break the edges just with a plane. Just a few passes of the plane just makes them easier to handle, and they won't splinter on you. And your directional arrows, what is that about? Well, probably after a day or so, you should sight down the top.

Almost all of them will end up with some kind of a crown. Which is a good thing. It's a good thing, and I always mark where that crown or that high spot is. You know, it's fairly slight, but what you want to do is in a deep, well, especially with kitchen cabinets, like we were just talking about. In a deep glue-up like this, you put the crown towards the middle, and that way, when you clamp here and here, you're gonna be putting extra pressure there in the middle where you can't get a clamp.

Yeah, take advantage of that bow. Cool, well, the cauls are very handy. Obviously these were like free to make except for your labor, and we know that it's not worth anything anyway. That's not worth much. Good tip.

Thanks, Dave.