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The Rockler Small Piece Holder lets you work much safer but more accurately and efficiently as well. Click image to enlarge

Rockler Small Piece Holder

A smart, economical way to be safe

Text, photos and video by Tom Hintz

Posted – 5-12-2015

Probably one of the most dangerous things you can do on a router table is to guide a small work piece with your hands. Woodworkers have tied using clamps and shop-made fixtures for years but they lack the safety and performance of a tool purpose designed for the job. The Rockler Small Piece Holder (#57896) represents a major step up in safety at one of the most-used tools in any woodworking shop.

The Basics

The Rockler Small Piece Holder is about 12-1/2”- long by 3-3/4” – wide with 1-3/4”-tall jaws and an overall height of 6-1/4” at the tops of the handles. It has a between jaw holding capacity of up to 8-1/2” but since the jaws are open front to back longer pieces with a maximum width of 8-1/2” can be held as well.

A pair of heavy steel rods serve as the backbone of the Rockler Small Piece Holder. An equally heavy fine threaded shaft down the center guides the movable jaw and helps generate the clamping pressure to secure the work pieces.

The clamping jaws have a tough abrasive face that increases holding security by a bunch. A pushbutton on top of the moving jaw lets you quickly set the initial width and then use the knurled aluminum knob on the end of the Rockler Small Piece Holder to apply clamping pressure to secure the piece.

The clamping jaws (left) have this abrasive face that gets a great grip on the workpiece and the pins hold the wood down on the table. The Rockler Small Piece Holder is designed to be used with bearing equipped bits (right) and whenever possible, the safety pin. Click images to enlarge

The clamping jaws have a pair of vertical slots that are used to position the included steel pins used to hold the material down on the table surface. You can also use these slots to screw sacrificial faces to the jaws to minimize blow out on end cuts.

To provide the maximum safety the Rockler Small Piece Holder comes with two large handles that make using this tool more comfortable while increasing the safety zone between your hands and the router bit. The Rockler Small Piece Holder is designed to be used with a bearing guided router bit and these handles give you superior control over the jig to produce smooth, consistent cuts.

In the Shop

I know people have been using small parallel jaw clamps to hold smaller pieces but they are clumsy which makes control more difficult than with a purpose designed tool like the Rockler Small Piece Holder. As soon as I got this tool onto my router table it was obvious that this is the way to go when routing small pieces.

One of the things that make the Rockler Small Piece Holder so effective is how easy it is to use. The abrasive jaws get a superior hold on the wood while the clamping pressure knob lets you get a tight grip to keep the wood in the Rockler Small Piece Holder. The push button jaw release is a big help and makes setting a work piece in the Rockler Small Piece Holder fast.

The distance between the upright handles gives the operator plenty of control over the work piece while keeping the hands far from the cutter. The way you grip the Rockler Small Piece Holder almost forces you to be applying downward pressure as you move the work piece across the cutter. That engages the hold down pins that really put the Rockler Small Piece Holder head and shoulders above any parallel jaw clamp you may have been using. This is an important feature of the Rockler Small Piece Holder because of the tendency of wood to ride up over the cutter. Keeping the wood down helps it resist slipping out of the jaws and that makes for more consistent cuts and safer operation.

Conclusions

The Rockler Small Piece Holder allows you to work with a wide range of workpiece sizes and do it safely and efficiently. Click image to enlarge

The Rockler Small Piece Holder is very easy to use because it is well designed and manufactured for this specific task. The clamping pressure it generates is not overpowering but is more than sufficient to hold the work pieces in the abrasive covered jaws. For a tool designed to improve safety the Rockler Small Piece Holder also does a good job of increasing your productivity.

The Rockler Small Piece Holder should be on the “must have” list in any woodworking shop. If you appreciate increasing your safety while making your routing of smaller parts more consistent the $49.99 (5-1-2015) purchase price is surprisingly realistic. I suspect that some could make a very similar tool but by the time you source out and buy the components and spend the time to perfect the operation you could have bought a few of the Rockler Small Piece Holder and have been making projects for quite a while.

Visit the Rockler Small Piece Holder product page – Click Here

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