Hello, couple of quick questions:
Background:
I just finished carving/machining 2 extra clamps for my 2015 X-Carve out of red oak. After comparing my new clamps to the old ones (included with my original X-Carve) I noticed the grain looks noticeably different. This led to the two questions above.
Carlos (Chachin…)
They are red oak. We use baltic birch plywood for our clamps. But any hardwood should work.
according to the description they are red oak.
This set consists of 4 clamps, 4 threaded insert and a set of screws. The clamps are made of red oak. They are strong,
Red Oak doesn’t always mean Red Oak, there’s True Northern Red Oak,Scarlett Oak, Pin Oak, Black Oak, and many others But once they hit the Saw mill their all just sawn and graded as Red Oak. The Ones you machined look to me like Northern Red Oak and the Ones from Inventables Look more like a Pin Oak or Southern Red Oak which tend to be more of a wheat color where Northern Red Oak has the more pinkish color and better defined radial grain
Debbie is spot on, any hardwood will do the job.
I have some made of cherry and some of oak. all have been in service for 4 years now.
I just threaded 1/4-20 into one end for jack screws for adjusting height, no need for inserts.
Baltic Birch Plywood here. Made them a year ago, even got the pattern from the projects page. Thicker ones are 7/16", and the thinner ones are 3/16". Never broken one, but have zipped through a few with the router. Use them almost every day. Doesn’t matter because they are cheap. Little left over rattle can marron to add flavor.
I like the clamps to be a different color from the bed, helps me see them with my tired old eyes.
Thank you all for the detailed info! Just what I was looking for.
So far the new red oak clamps are working as expected, so I’ll continue using this wood type for now.
Looking forward to trying some new designs next.
Chachin…
I’d be interested in trying the plywood clamps. I’ve made my own red oak versions over the years, but find they split really easy either when screwing in the threaded insert, or if accidentally overtightening.
Pike_lake, in case it helps, I machined the holes for my M6 inserts to Ø8.9 mm and saw no splitting when threading in the insert. This is only 0.1 mm larger than the Ø8.8 mm called out on the Inventables B25002 clamp drawing.
Chachin…
