How to Clamp Irregular-Shaped Objects
George VondriskaDescription
Master woodworker George Vondriska shows you how to successfully clamp irregular shaped objects for your woodworking projects. A WoodWorkers Guild of America (WWGOA) original video.
Sometimes clamping stuff together, especially irregular objects like this guitar neck, just doesn't allow for the use of conventional clamping techniques. So this is a case where, because of the strange shape of the back of the neck, if I put a clamp on there, it tends to just slip off. I can't get good clamp pressure all the way out to the edge of the fret board. And I'm not gonna get a good glue bond. This is a very simple solution to this problem.
These snakes I've got piled up on the bench here are strips cut from bicycle inner tubes. So I bought just a conventional bike tube off the shelf, using a pair of scissors cut it into strips about 3/4 of an inch wide, the length of the tube. Then, when I've got objects like this that require uniform pressure all the way around, I can wrap, wrap, wrap, get a lot of pressure. It's consistent all the way around the object. It's a great way to seal this joint.
Very, very inexpensive, you get a lot of strips out of one tube. Great gluing technique to have in your arsenal to make sure that even against funky stuff like this, you're gonna get a great glue bond.
https://www.wwgoa.com/video/how-to-clamp-irregular-shaped-objects-000262/ https://www.wwgoa.com/video/how-to-clamp-irregular-shaped-objects-000262/How do you secure the ends?
Why would you leave all that squeeze out on the edges of your fingerboard? I do like the rubber inner tube band clamping technique and I will remember it. When building a new guitar, we clamp the fingerboard with a caul on top before the neck is carved. You also may want to drill a couple of tiny holes right through the fret slots and use a couple of small gauge index pins to keep the fingerboard from skating around on you. Say at the second fret and 13th or later fret. The holes must be small enough that the frets will cover them up. I hope you use a scraper after the glue gels a little and clean that up. It will be murder to clean up after it hardens. Take care Sir, I'm glad to see a lutherie related post on here.