Bessy

Drawer all glued up

I made the bottom out of a scrap of cherry. I made 1/4″ grooves and the plywood I have on hand is, of course, too small for those grooves.

Then I glued up the drawer after a bit of finishing with my smoother. I’ll open up the clamps later today and see how it fits.

You can never have enough clamps!

So the Bessy test clamps are on the way! Here’s the list of what’s coming (Left to right):

REVO™ 2 x 24”
REVO™ 2 x 31”
REVO™ Jr. 2 x 24”
REVO™ Jr. 2 x 36”
UniKlamp 2 x 12”
UniKlamp 2 x 24”

The purpose behind this is to get our impressions on how the REVO™ Jr. fits in to our line of parallel clamps as a mid-size, mid-priced product.

Questions to be answered:

Is it a good compromise to pick if the investment in a REVO™ is just too great?
What features work well for you?
What do you like?
What do you not like? Openness and honesty please.

BTW – feel free to share your thoughts. That’s what this is all about after all. I know Vic expressed concerns over small handles. I’m jazzed to try out the lighter version. More to come as soon as the goods arrive.

Oh, if you don’t know what this is about, click here -> Revo Jr. Clamp Product Test

K Body® REVO™ JR

It now looks like we won’t be receiving our clamps for testing until June now. However, I was in Woodcraft today and what do I see, but the K Body Revo Jr. clamp for sale.

So I did a little mini product test while in the store. Almost all my clamps are Bessy clamps and one of the things that has given me troubles in the past is holding the jaws apart when the clamp is standing on its head. Now, I wax my clamps to prevent glue from sticking to them, so that probably doesn’t help.

I took the 24″ Revo Jr., opened the jaw and sure enough it stayed open. That seems like a really nice feature.

My friend Vic expressed concern that the wooden handles are smaller and would be harder to use. The ones in the store sure enough have smaller handles, but they worked well in my hands and I don’t have really small hands. But .. it might be a problem for folks with larger hands.

What I really like is compared to the larger Bessey clamps is that the Jrs are lighter. And for me, who continues to tweak her elbow tendons, that’s a really good thing. Same power, less weight seems like it might be really good.

However, I probably need to use the clamps before I can say anything definitive. And that will have to wait till June.

A Quick Peek at the Clamps I’ll be testing
Yeah! I get to be a guinea pig!

A Quick Peek at the Clamps I’ll be testing

K Body® REVO™ JR, parallel clamp (click here to watch YouTube)

I should be receiving these in a couple of weeks and will provide photos and information as I use them.

Related post:
Yeah, I get to be a guinea pig!

Saw Till Glue up

I cut the sides of my saw till to look like .. well, a saw. At least that's what it looked like to me. I cut this using the band saw and then used my new Veritas® Low-Angle Spokeshave. Umm .. I've used a spokeshave before and I found it to be a difficult endeavor. I love my new spokeshave. Wow! , it was so easy to use and left a beautiful surface. I'm hooked!