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I installed an ivoroid ring as the start of a rosette recently. It was a piece of binding that i bent into a circle with a hair dryer, and since it was over 1/4" wide it didn't want to lay flat. So the dilemma was how to clamp it. In the past I have used a couple of bench planes piled up, but I wanted to be able to see all around to make sure everything was sitting down properly. Plus I came up with something a little more elegant - several foot long sticks with a drywall screw in the end of each - see the first shot.

The clamps are positioned in from the end several inches - as much as possible. Worked great, didn't get in the way visually, and any CA glue residue didn't stick them down. I did 1/2 of the rosette at a time. I also used it on the rope rings around the ivoroid, but they were pretty tame in comparison.

A couple of days later I had to epoxy glue in a dutchman (a patch for excavated rotted or questionable wood) on a mast and needed a way to keep the patch stable in an area where a clamp wouldn't work so easily - gave it a shot and it worked perfectly. Again, the epoxy residue did not stick the head of the screw to the white oak very much at all - it popped right off - second shot.

For size comparison - the red wood top weighs less than a pound, and the 58', 14" diameter mast weighs about 2200 lbs. The mast is Douglas Fir and all of the pieces added to it are Osage Orange.

Ed

That's a useful trick Ed, I've done similar with wooden feet but not with drywall screws.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

Great solution! In the first photo, I would be a little worried about denting the top with the tail end of each stick. Did you do anything to those ends of the sticks to cushion them?

I like it a lot! And using ivoroid in a rosette is something I never considered. I'll have to keep it in mind. You never know.

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Joe Beaver
Maker of Sawdust

"Great solution! In the first photo, I would be a little worried about denting the top with the tail end of each stick. Did you do anything to those ends of the sticks to cushion them?"

Don

Didn't think of that, but the ends of my sticks were off the footprint of the top. Good catch



"I like it a lot! And using ivoroid in a rosette is something I never considered. I'll have to keep it in mind. You never know."

Joe

And here is my inspiration - Gibson from the 20's. I am using the cross-grained ivoroid from Axion, lovely stuff