Wood Welder

[bob vaughan]

I was doing some shop cleaning and rolled this out and thought that many of you all may never have seen one.
A wood welder.
At least that’s what they call it.
Basically it’s a radio transmitter with a VERY short range. It heats the glue and sets it. Once the heat subsides, the glue is set and ready to be removed from the clamps. For long joints, one zaps a few areas along the joint and then the glue-up can be removed from the clamps for curing. It works well on Titebond II because that’s a catalyzed glue that sets quickly and fully cures in 24 hours. The best glue would be Weldwood plastic resin glue.
What I have is the smaller model 3000 that suits my needs fine. For a while I also had the model 4000, but it was simply way too big and powerful for my needs.
It’s a professional production tool and not meant for home shops.
RF (radio frequency) glue drying has been around for a long time in the plywood mills. I first used one of these back in the 1970s.
Pretty cool stuff but a bit esoteric in a home shop like mine these days. Years back I used it often when I was doing a lot of woodworking.

They still make the model 4000. The instruction video is interesting as is their website.

WorkRite INC Home Page


Front view

Side view showing hand gun


For scale, the model 4000 on the left and the 3000 on the right

 

[Bming1]

Wow, this is incredible! I had no idea such a thing existed. Thanks for sharing it.

 

[Oka]

Bob you are just tempting us with a new tool ....... very cool

 

[bob vaughan]

The insides are even more cool

 

[Oka]

LOL this kind of stuff can now be done on a small computer card and inverter tech

 

[gamiller3rd]

Love the tubes inside. Reminds me of our old radio.

 

[Mike Davis]

They use something similar in industrial weaving mills to bond the cloth as it is being woven.

 

[bob vaughan]

These portable "wood welders" first came on the market in 1949 IIRC. Its old technology theory that's used in a lot of industry. My son had his heart muscles zapped by a similar device, much miniaturized of course.
Using one of these allows the glue-up panel to be spot dried and then removed from the clamps and set aside to dry. The next panel is then set in the clamps. It eliminates moving a lot of clamps on and off the bench and on and off the assembly and on and off the clamp rack. Its good if you've got a lot of the same relative size panels like gluing up panels for raised panel door work.