Trick for assembling tight-fitting pieces

A small rubber-tipped hammer is my goto, but when you can’t find which box it was packed in, or your parts don’t lend themselves to hammer-tapping, squeeze clamps come in VERY handy…lol

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two of them and a piece of wood on top and bottom is what I have used to close gaps.

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I’m a heathen. I just use a plain old claw hammer :wink:

This clamp trick is probably smarter.

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I have like, maybe a dozen and a half of these little clamps. They’re awesome. And they’re cheap.

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Clever… and quieter than a hammer.

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Packing tape on thick, flat material makes a great press for things like inlay, using clamps like this.

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Particularly when one edge is all fingers that could be damaged and I want to spread out the force across a large area and even multiple clamps, I found that the scraps from making the fingers can be used to great effect…


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Getting equal pressure as you clamp across the joint is key when doing this (I use it a lot). I’ve in the past used a scrap piece of Maple or Oak on the short side (direction of the grain runs parallel to the edge I’m clamping) to do this with success.

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I never would have thought of it! Nice tip!

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I had already forgotten this great trick, could have used it recently!

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You shoulda’ called me. :wink:

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Well, this is a rather neat trick! Don’t know how I missed it but I sure could have used it on the last major assembly job.

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I have used it from the first time. More rare for me to use the rubber or leather mallet. Then again when using glue, clamps are the natural way to go.

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