Flattening material...

[harryball]

o...k... can anyone suggest how to hold down a 9 x 24 board on the bot to surface it :-)

My first idea was nifty double sided guide clamps, clamp to table, place and shim board, clamp board, surface away. Since I don't have those clamps, HD or LW's does not sell them and Rockler is more than an hour one way... I'm looking for plan B.

I was thinking of a vac holddown with weather stripping... let it suck down and see if it's stable and won't move... has anyone attacked the problem that way and maybe has a hint?

EDIT: Since I'm going to be doing so many of these I'm going to make a vac puck to fit the plank. I'll place the gasket about an inch inside the perimeter and use shims to position the wood like I want it and then run the surfacing routine.

Robert

[paco]

Side clamp with scrap and wedges; one or two should be enough. You might have to screw down some. If you're not too aggressive, you shouldn't need a very strong hold.

[rhfurniture]

Paco,
Sorry, I should have noticed that one. Park is my positioning to change material routine. You could change it (the whole of line 24) to JH, but probably best deleted. The whole routine needs to be gone through to set it up for how you work.