Load spreaders for woodworking clamps:
Today I wanted to show you these, we call them Load spreaders and they are super simple to make.
The question i can hear you asking ” What do you use them for?”
Well…… They are a scrap piece of HDF flooring with a magnet inserted and glued in one side and what they do is magnetize to the metal clamps.
So when we are gluing up pieces of wood they attach to the insides of clamps and this prevents getting an indentation in the piece we are working on.
They are most useful when putting your clamps upside down because they just don’t fall off!
I used the table saw to take off the tongue-and-groove part of the wood and used the small cross cut sled to cut the smaller pieces. I cut these at 50mm wide and 80mm tall. I’ve found that this is the perfect size for the clamps we use.
Next I used the belt sander just to round the corners, there isn’t any particular reason for this other than i like them like that 🙂 but if you prefer to leave them with square corners than that’s absolutely fine.
After I finished sanding the corners, I used the pillar drill to drill the holes in the center of the wood. I haven’t drilled all the way through only enough for the magnet to sit flush. Although i did drill a couple too deep :-/
Then I used a 2 part Epoxy to glue in the magnets, the ones that I had drilled too deep, the magnets started to tip side ways so i used a piece of grease proof paper and a spring clamp to hold the magnet in the correct position.
The grease proof paper just stopped the clamp sticking to the Epoxy.
