John Lucas
I had to devise a new clamping method for the 8 segment glue ups. I fell back on an old favorite. String. By balancing the pressure from the top clamp and the string turniquet I was able to close the joint. Had to use my inspection mirror to see it however. Fortunately I had the deep C clamps to help pull it into alignment. I checked the 90 degree angle and it's dead on so hopefully the other 3 will be the same. That's a relief. I really wasn't looking forward to hand planing the angle correct. That usually shortens a ring and throws the whole circle off a little.
While I was gluing up the segments yesterday I cut 200 mitered segments for the two floating rings. I'll start gluing those up this morning. If I'm lucky the walnut segments will glue up as one ring or at least 180 at a time. The maple ring is too thin and I will have to use the rub joint method for those two rings. I put glue on, rub them togther until they start to grab and then hold them for a count of 20. I do this on a waxed surface. Then I just let them sit and go to the next pair. Takes a while to do this but it works really well. One advantage is you can check them at every even angle such as 45, 90, 180 etc and make some minor corrections on the disc sander if needed. Hopefully my segments are dead on and won't need that.
By the way, the blade the came with my Makita miter saw will saw partly through a Destaco clamp and still cut a clean joint. You don't need to ask how I know that.