Homebrew Face Frame Assembly Table?

[Matt Meiser]

I have a lot of face frames to assemble for my parents' kitchen and am thinking about putting together some kind of assembly jig like the Kreg table. I'd probably buy a Kreg table but its too small for almost all my faceframes. I'd love to see some examples of homebrew tables.

[Larry Rupert]

Sorry no pics, etc., but I've been looking into it myself. Shouldn't be that hard to do. Some angle iron, square tubing, some pneumatic cylinders, and a little welding. TaDA!!

[Robert foster]

Matt:

I just came up from the shop and if I had known about your question I would have taken some pix of the assembly table i built last week. I basically just used some t-track doubled made them square and have some clamps on it to hold the workpieces down. I'll try to take some pictures tomorrow.

Bob

[Alex Berkovsky]

Matt,
Check out the latest issue of ShopNotes.

[Roger Jensen]

I have a Festool MFT table and I mounted one of the Kreg clamps in each of the front corners:

Of course any table would do. Not as handy as the rails in the ShopNotes article this month, but it does the job for me.

Roger

[Chip Lindley]

A 4'x8' FF table TOO SMALL? Hmm. Must be a very Expansive kitchen indeed! IF an 8' table is too small, FFs could be built in sections.

I'm curious as to HOW LARGE your FFs will need to be!

[Matt Meiser]

Chip, not the big Face Framing Table they sell (forgot about those, but $3K is out of my budget.) I was referring to the Klamp Table which has a 21x33 top.

[Craig Coney]

I made one out of MDF with two cleats at 90 degrees to do face frames for one project. It no longer exists, used it to make alot of other jigs once I was done.

[Chip Lindley]

OK Craig, now we're on the Same Page! LQQK at the BIG Kreg table! You see that it is a flat 4'x8' surface on a frame, at a steep angle, with exact 90deg. rails along the left and bottom. A vertical rail travels horizontally to clamp pieces down to the surface.

A guy could make a frame of wood steel or aluminum, and lay down a sheet of 1/4" *pegboard* over some 3/4" MDF, with straight edge stops at side and bottom. Instead of 4'x8', design for 3'x5' which will handle most any FF in a kitchen!

Instead of Kreg's pneumatic clamp rail, which rides horizontally above the table, make some wooden *cams* with a pivot dowel which insert in the pegboard holes around the outside perimeter, to twist and clamp the FF against the straight edge at side and bottom.

A FF could be securely clamped, drilled, and screwed together pretty efficiently this way. Only drawback is lack of vertical clamping. But this could easily be remedied with a vertical rail travelling along the table length with screw clamps instead of expensive pneumatics!

In fact I have drawn up such a FF clamp table which *flips* to make a pipe clamp glue-up table! The table would pivot on a hefty frame at it's center, to expose either side at a steep angle for use. The steep angle saves space, and gravity helps position the parts!

(Wish I had a basic CAD drawing pgm to illustrate these brainstorms. Nothing I've found is quick and dirty. The learning curve for most CAD pgms is too Steep & Frustrating for me to invest all that time)

[Brad Ridgway]

chip if you dont need 3d, go grab FelixCAD LT

i used to used autocad at an old job... given the price, this does what i need and not bad at all....