For those who do segmented turning, this is a jig that could help with the clamping (or at least make it less of a balancing act to set up). I copied this design by Frank Howarth:
Here are all the parts: a base, three sizes of pressure plates, a threaded rod, and three pairs of nuts + washers:
Two of the nuts + washers pairs clamp the rod onto the base. The third pair then clamps the pressure plate onto your segmented ring stack:
The whole thing is finished with polyurethane – poorly, but good enough to protect the jig from glue squeeze-out.
The jig works well, but threading nuts over the length of the rod gets annoying. If you happen to be a much better welder than me and feel like improving this further, there is a follow-up video where he built a handle for the clamp:
That said, it’s a “would be nice” kind of improvement, not really critical to the function of the jig.
Given that it’s a uni-tasker kind of thing, I left it in the corner of the wood lathe area where it’s fairly out of the way. If there’s a better place, feel free to let me know or simply move it there.
