I think we should discuss have a committee clamp maintenance day. I’d say 1 in every 5, maybe more, maybe less of the Bessey clamps are non-functional, stuck, or covered in glue to the point they are essentially useless. Why don’t we spend 2-3 hours as a committee finding the broken ones and throwing them out, scraping as much glue as we can off the operational ones, and then we can determine how many we need to buy to replace those we threw out. Rockler/Woodcraft always have nice Bessey clamps sales on Black Friday, it would be a great opportunity to replace our broken clamps.
@Team_Woodshop
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@jeffbob, Angela, Mat ? (who provided a portable steamer), myself, and one or two others did this the last time. It was a big undertaking. Within 3-4 weeks many were gummed up again due to lack of appropriate rule (clamps should/must be protected from glue with tape or wax paper) and enforcement thereof.
Thanks for the reminder!..I was just about to purchase some cheaper brand units out of BPF (Bessey price frustration…it’s in the DSM-5)
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Good opportunity to get the inventory count for the move at the same time.
When are the clamps least used? Monday/Tues nights? Might need to put a sign up on the clamp rack stating that no glue ups are to be done for a 24 hour period to ensure we can clean/count them all.
When we cleaned them up we only had to buy a brass brushfor the grinder to clean them up. Brass over steel as it is lessabrasive but still does the job quickly.
Jeff Whitcomb
“The only good sense is one of humor, without it all the others are worthless.” JCW
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