How are you holding down the front and back edges of a full 4x4 sheet cut? Ideally I’d like to put 3 clamps on each edge, like I do with the right and left sides. These are my makeshift holds which help but not so much if the sheet has even the slightest cupping. Larger spring clamps get in the way of loading and unloading the stock and I haven’t come across a great solution yet.
What do you all use?
Cupping is a fact of life with plywood. There are a lot of folks that made vacuum tables here on the forum. If all you are going to do is plywood that might make sense. You can get a vacuum pump or use an air compressor that you make a venturi effect to get a vacuum. Clamps are always a pain. Either they stick up in the path or they are always in the wrong spot. I use cam clamps so they do not stick up in the way but clamps that hold down from the top have some advantages to keep your stock from rising up during cutting with up cut bits.
There is the painters tape and super glue method but large pieces that might be impractical because of time and cost of the tape and super glue. However if you are cutting the same things over and over you could just use the painters tape and super glue just on certain parts of your project.
Even though I use mostly cam clamps I do have to employ some of the C3D basic clamps. The super glue works well but will not hold down a cupped piece of plywood. So it is doubly important that you store your sheet goods where they will stay flat and stable.
In each one of your included photos, you had more than 3 places to put a screw (nylon?) through to T-track extrusions to hold down that area.
I did – that one was too large and stripped. I know I could put more of these DIY ones around the edge, but I was hoping for a more efficient solution vs hand tightening ~12 clamps on each cut.
If there are cutout areas with no toolpath, I just put screws directly into the spoilboard.
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