The more wood working I do, the more I find that one of the biggest investments entails clamps. A friend warned me “Charlie, you can never have enough clamps.” He was right.
I need parallel clamps but they are really attacking my hobby budget.
Anyone have suggestions for the cheapest seller or best place for good deals on clamps? $50-$100 is per clamp is really painful.
No problem. Wooden cam clamps. I made up a batch quite awhile back, out of plwood, from about 6" to 48", figure the cost was around $.25 each Plans all over the net, but think they all call for some form of metal, nails, shaft, etc. Mine were 100% plywood, with wood glue. Work great, luthiers use them a lot I changed what I worked on, and recycled all of them - planer sleds, etc.
Got a bunch of all kinds from HF. Had one squeeze clamp break in 10+ years. Would have cost more in gas to get a replacement than buy a new one when I'm in town which is 30 miles away.
Many of us are all over the board on clamps. Last count, I have somewhere north of 150. In that much too small collection are a whole bunch of Harbor Freight F clamps, a LOT of pipe clamps (Pony and others), a few Besseys, some HF aluminum clamps, a few antique bar clamps and so on. The Besseys in my collection are relatively new. Like most, I got by with pipe clamps and HF bar clamps.
Using pipes with threads on both ends, you can add couplers and extend three or four foot pipes to clamp the world.
Too, you can even make your own clamps. Here is a write up I did on one type I came up with for use on my bandsaw, drill press and so on:
Just out of curiosity, why do you feel you need parallel clamps? I have 4 Besseys I got from Lee Valley when they had a sale on them years ago, 2 50"s and 2 30"s and I rarely use them and don't particularly like them. I find you often need 3 hands to operate them, one to hold the clamp in place on your work, one to hold the mechanism under the jaw until there is sufficient pressure on it to hold it in place, and one hand to tighten the clamp. Unfortunately I only have 2 hands. So I tend to prefer using regular F clamps, pipe clamps, and lately I've been collecting the aluminum beam clamps when they are on sale. I only use the aluminum ones in long lengths, 48" and up, because at those lengths the other types get very heavy. If I need more pressure I add some of the other types after I've secured my work with the aluminum ones. By that time I have both hands free to man handle the heavy ones.
And yes Harbor Freight clamps are suitable for the most part but you also need to pay attention to the clamping pressure ratings or you'll find some just won't clamp as tight as you need. On the HF aluminum clamps you really need to add some wood to reinforce them before they work well. Not a big deal and very doable.
why buy something that needs work/rework/modifications to get it preform and add costs...
would you buy a brand new truck and then have it towed to a repair shop and pay to have made operational???
I think not...
I have F clamps but was trying doing some laminating of pieces. I needed to spread the pressure over a larger area to help hide the seams. If I use backer boards, the f clamps don't seem to have enough power
Several clamps, alternate above and below, modest pressure has worked for me so far. If your joints are true, you don't have to wrestle the boards together with a ton of clamping pressure.
Before I had an adequate number of clamps I definitely over clamped a few panels and made "banana" shape boards. Two of the shelves in my basement stereo cabinet still remind me of that today. It's a subtle curve, but I can see it...
Regardless of whether the parallel clamps put pressure on at a perfectly square angle or not cauls are still a good idea. Few boards are dead flat, even after being dressed so the cauls help line the edges up.
Weights, rubber bands, surgical tubing, ratchet straps, clothes pins, and masking tape are all clamping methods that can work well in the right circumstances. Lee Valley even sells a masking tape just for this purpose.
One way to do what you're talking about Theo is to put a thin layer of glue on both sides of the joint and then wait for most of the water in the glue to dry up. Then when you stick them together they stick and don't tend to slide around as mush as whn the glue is fresh. It's almost like using contact cement.
Yeah, got a whole bunch of new clothespins a little back, they work fantastic on small jobs, much better, for me anyway, then small clamps, and loads less expensive. I don't do rubber bands, surgical tubing, ratchet straps, or tape. For what I do any of those would be just too much of a PITA for me.
I know about thin layers of glue on each, have used it in the past, but overall, for me it is just another pain. All good advice for newcomers tho. But I've been doing it my way for so long I don't really want to change.
I'm with the HF group. A year ago I need more long clamps for a one time job. I had a few pipe clamps that I used but they are so heavy that they were the last ones I reached for. I went out and bought a bunch of 4 and 5 foot HF clamps, They worked perfectly and I caught them when they were on sale. The 20% off coupon made them even cheaper. Since I'm always buying and selling I was able to sell 20 of them for almost what I paid for them. In the end, I lost about $15 dollars which I considered rent. I could have kept them and would have had they been a brand name. Some of the clamps that HF sell are real junk, The aluminum bar clamps are good enough to get the job done.
Thank you all for the ideas, especially the examples of homemade clamps. The F clamps I have do the job until I need to laminate multiple layers of wood together. To be honest I think I am doing a good job on cutting the wood but…... how even I am spreading the glue is another matter.
I have thought about using a couple of pieces of Unistrut bar and a jack to make a hydraulic press. That would mash out any excess glue at least on straight pieces. Yes I know that might be a bit of over kill.
Actually, a press is the traditional way of doing that, not overkill at all. You might want to look up vacuum press for veneering. While more expensive, vacuum presses are a lot more flexible - can do non-flat shapes.
This is completely off-topic, but I don't know where to ask, being a somewhat newbie:
I see that Charlie68 has 'Registered User" with two stars next to your name. What does that signify? If I was on Amazon, I might think no one likes you.... I suspect that is erroneous here!
I bought the hf aluminum bar clamps for $10 to $14 bucks a piece and then took strips of poplar the internal size and dadoed a 1/8” grove in the bottom center lengthwise. Then drove into each clamp Leaving enough room for the end cap which I cva glued in. Then cut leather caps and with spray adhesive attached to the clamp pads. They turned out to be very strong and reliable clamps very impressively priced.
I have 4 sets of Jet parallel clamps. 24 inches up to 60 inches. Bought them back in my had money days. I like them for cabinets in particular. But I also have the aluminum bar clamps from HF that I like using and use more often. I have replaced most of my small HF F clamps with Bessys I found on sale around the holidays, on sale in 4 packs. I like the heavier bars they have than the HF models. I have hardware for the pipe clamps, but just don't like hauling around all that weight so I usually default to the aluminum clamps. I've thought of putting a hardwood shaft inside them, but I finally learned not to overtighten, so I don't get a curve when I tighten them. My clamp rack is the pegboard wall behind my workbench, handy. I kept the HF small F clamps for those times when I just need a few more. I also use them to hold my BB ply face to face and nice and flat. I have a couple of C and scissor style clamps including some very long reach C clamps that I don't use often, but when nothing else will do the job.
One long wall in my 12x24 shop is covered with peg board wity a 6 foot section that has wire shelving. The edges of the bottom wire shelf have just the right opening size for my Bessy F clamps. Compact, holds a lot of longer clamps.
There are so many exotic clamps it's astonishing.
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