I possess a collection in excess of 30 F clamps. They range from 6 inch to 24 + in length. I however only use 5 regularly, two 6 inch and three stupidly heavy and long ones.. The reason being that they are reliable. Goodness knows how much they set the original owner 40 years or so ago. I am horrid to my clamps they frequently live outdoors often without cover. Whilst they all perform like marines, my newer clamps have a tendency to go AWOL at inappropriate moments.
Firstly F clamps use the same principle as a holdfast. A sliding head locking onto a serrated stem when put under pressure. Cheap versions use soft castings that sooner or later fail to lock onto the serrations. No use.
This problem can be fixed by enhancing the serrations with a fie or hacksaw, cleaning up the head casting to a sharper edge may also do the trick. Spoiler alert: you have just added another regular task to your maintenance list.
Alternatively, we could take two wildly different approaches, either stop being a tightwad and start collecting good quality clamps. Or, contemplate the locking design and consider other solutions. Let me explain. For millennia wood workers have used elegant and functional methods to secure work in progress. An obvious example being the humble wedge.. Then some bright spark, possibly Archimedes, came up with a functional screw.
This development started our craze for clamps. The range running from teeny ones used to make musical instruments through to lengthy sash clamps capable of holding massive creations steady for the effective glue up of sash windows, tabletops, etc.
Theoretically all you need for a functionally effective clamp is a stop block linked by a stem of wood or metal to an ideally sliding end block with a short thread to apply appropriate pressure. Let's extrapolate this concept to our failing F clamps.
The head will have a thread a few inch inches. So let's simplify and forget everything but the stem and the threaded section of the head. Mark and drill a series of holes along your stem. Equidistant spacing looks neat but holds little practical advantage.
I have found the ideal distance between holes to be the length of your clamping screw or slightly less. insert the work to be clamped.
Find the closest hole on the other side if the clamp head and drop in a nail, screw, twig or pin, I planned to use a small carabiner as I lose nails. Then simply turn the screw clamp to pressure . Job done!
I recently got fed up with my table saw clogging up space. I gave it away on Freecycle. It’s replacement, an Evolution track saw. Saw, sharp plane and a shooting board improves accuracy without the terror of a chunk of timber doing a violent about turn, ouch. And, it fits into a cupboard.
Of course the unforeseen consequence was that my bench slab plus 4 inches of cutting bench made the track hold down F clamps unusable. My collection one hand speed clamps come to the rescue, two of which have lost their retaining nuts.The result of cheap deals again. However, for once, two fails make a result. Simply saw a couple of inches from the speed clamp’s long stem . File or saw the two pieces creating a haunched tenon joint to form an F clamp. Once joined, sawn, filed or ground to match the supplied clamp you have a smile and non wonky sided sheet material.
The hand tool enthusiasts could get a length of aluminium T track extrusion instead of the power saw guide, creating a hand saw guide and rebate plane guide. The addition of a sacrificial strip of wood or melamine to one side, saw teeth can be vicious. Now your workshop has a handy square edge for very accurate marking up etc. combined with a multi tool guide. Saving the air from many expletives!
Imagine your pleasure from breathing fresh life into tools that would otherwise be destined for the recycling centre.
Comments