Thread: Traditonal hand screw clamps

IanW has posted extensively on the making of wooden screw clamps and has written a couple of articles for Australian wood review fairly recently. A gold mine of information.

I'm sure he will chime in soon enough.

Cheers

By hand screw clamps are you referring to "c" clamps or parallel type I have a hundred or so "c" clamps and use them all the time, they just a bit slow to use compared to the various "f" types

IanW is definitely the Southern Hemisphere's residentguru on wooden hand clamps. I’ll secondEnfield Guy’s sentiment there. I'm lucky to have a couple of his and haveevery intention of duplicating them soon. Wooden clamps are great. Between them and pipe clamps you are pretty much set. There are ways to make wooden “sash” styleclamps as well, which, in my limited experience (also with Ian), work equallyas well as any metal one.

The one caveat with wooden clamps is that you have to understand how they work,or, otherwise, you can break them. I waslucky enough to have proper instruction, and haven’t broken one, but if you don’tget the right info on how they work, I could see it being frustrating.

Pipe clamps are also worth mentioning. You buy the actual clamps, and then they can be used on differentlengths of pipe. It’s a drasticallycheaper option than full sized Bessy clamps, and, in my opinion, just as good.

Having a few F-style clamps, and even one or two of the Irwin Quick Clamps isgood for general holding as well.

Cheers,
Luke

Kate, I take it from your description that you are thinking of wooden-jawed clamps with metal screws, like these?

You can buy the hardware from various places at various prices, so there are savings to be had going that way. No need to use relatively expensive exotic woods for jaws, just about any old wood will do, but my advice is to use a medium-soft wood because it's less likely to mar your work. You could break wooden jaws with the metal screws, but only if you applied an excessive and quite unnecessary amount of pressure (I'd suggest you looked into your jointing technique if that were the case )

There are a couple of alternatives to buying ready-made hardware. Early-on, I made a few sets using 3/8" threaded rod. These work on much the same principle as the all-wood handscrews, i.e., the screws are all of a single direction instead of the half & half RH/LH thread of the Jorgensen style. That means they are half as quick to open & close, which really isn't a huge problem unless you are in a very busy workplace and need to apply lots of clamps constantly.

I pretty soon discovered that the swivelling barrel-nuts that allow the jaws to be closed off-parallel are the least essential feature of these clamps. Trying to clamp anything with jaws significantly off-parallel is usually an exercise in frustration, as they want to slip & slide, so it's a feature of very limited value. About 99% of the time you clamp two relatively parallel surfaces together, & for the few times you have odd shapes, it's usually better in my experience to make some angled cauls. So that means you can dispense with the barrel-nuts and just use two regular nuts pressed or epoxied into the jaw. The two nuts go in the same jaw for single-direction thread clamps, so that you can open & close them by holding a handle in each hand & rotating the clamps. There's an article on making this style in a very old Fine Woodworking, iirc. Such clamps are quite easy & inexpensive to make; my suggestion would be to start with 3/8" threaded rod, and make clamps that have 250mm long jaws, with enough screw length to open to about 200-250mm. I find that a pretty useful size for general cabinetry. If you try to make them open much more with 3/8 screws, they get a bit floppy.

Many moons ago, I started making all-wood handscrews and these are now far & away my preferred clamps, & daily users. The wide jaws don't mark the work, they are quick to open & close, can apply heaps of pressure, and as long as you don't try clamping with jaws more than a couple of degrees off-parallel, extremely rugged. The coarse thread (~8tpi) makes them just as quick to open & close as the double-threaded Jorgensen type. You can literally use any old wood for jaws, because the cross-grain threads in these bits are far stronger than the threads on the screws. Just to prove the point, I've got a couple with Aust. Red Cedar jaws that are holding up fine in regular use.

Screws should be tough material, and there are dozens of suitable hardwoods in Australia if you use a router for threading. If you want to use the traditional threadbox, your choice is much more limited, but there are several that are satisfactory. Applewood is wonderful stuff, if you can get your hands on some. Using a home-made router jig for threading the screws means I can thread just about any wood going: threading screw.jpg

So even though I've given away or traded quite a few over the years, I still have a wall-full of them, and on occasion, I've had just about every one of them in use at the one time (as they say, you can't have too many!). This is about half the population: handscrews.jpg

I find the most useful size for everyday use has 3/4" screws, with about 250mm jaws, & opening to about 250mm: Clamps 1.jpg

Again, that's about the limits the material can cope with. I have a few larger (1" screws, 300mm jaws and 300mm opening) and smaller (100-125mm jaws, 1/2" screws, opening ~100mm). The littlies are great for small work, but a bit delicate for rough & tumble stuff.

Apart from time, the cost per clamp is minimal, since much of the material can be got from scraps. It will take you a little time to knock up the first few sets, & sort the bugs (mostly a matter of how loose to make the screws so that they run nicely in all seasons), but once you get the hang of it, you can churn out a barrel-full in a day or so. I'd suggest to anyone wanting to get into handscrew-making to maybe try making a set with threaded rod & metal nuts, which will give you the idea and teach you how to use them efficiently.

Finally, there is one thing these clamps are not good at - fitting them one-handed. It can be done, but I'll admit I keep a coupe of those pistol-grip thingies on hand for those occasions where I have to hang onto the work with one hand whilst getting a clamp on with t'other. Once that's taken care of & I have both hands back, I reach for the woodies....

Ok, that's enough for the commercial - fire away with any specific questions....

Cheers,

Totally agree with IanW regarding the non-parallel use of these clamps. In my experience all it does is pull your work out of square/alignment. They certainly can be useful at times, but they're not good for everything. So often there are only two choices - cry when you pay for it or cry every time you use it. I know it hurts, but sometimes you have to spend money.

When I saw this thread, I immediately thought it was tailor made for IanW. By post #2 I realised Enfield Guy thought that too and by #4 Luke Maddox had re-affirmed this and there was no need to mention anything.

Except......that if you do not want to go down the traditional wooden clamp path or are on a time frame that does not allow for their production, have a close look at aldave's site and PM him if you are interested as he offer good alternatives to the like of Bessey and a lot more competitively priced. To his credit in post#6 he mentioned nothing of this probably not wishing to do a commercial hijack .

And I agree, you can't have too many clamps. In fact the first thing you have to do when visiting IanW's workshop is go past his battery of wooden clamps. My clamps on the other hand are spread around all over the place. Part of the fun is tracking them down .

Regards
Paul

Gee Paul, you've got a strange idea of what constitutes 'fun'!

I am referring to the parallel type I used C type years ago

Originally Posted by Kate84TS

I am referring to the parallel type I used C type years ago

This was the one I meant:

2 x Parallel Jaw Woodworking Clamps 12” 315mm not Bessey or Jet

Regards
Paul

Ian the short answer to what you posted is simple every thing you said is gold.

I do mean the Jorgensen type clamps. I have had cheap ones in the past and as you say they are get fiddly when clamping parallel. I really like the Idea of using a timber threaded version as the do appear solid. I was thinking of using Beech for the Jaws as its stable, works well and non marring as you say.

I may have ago at using 3/8 threaded rod or even beef it up to 1/2 to get a bit of extra length with out the floppy aspect I will look up the article it Fine Wood working. Then I get a lathe I suspect that I will be making a lot more of my own tools.

Thanks for all the info Ian

Hi All,

while looking at various clamping options I came across these https://mcjing.com.au/categorybrowse...ategoryid=1629 which seem to be a cheap copy of the Bessey ratchet clamps. While they only go up to 250mm they seem like a good option for quick holding and glue ups as apposed the the more classic style Irwin clutch bar clamps.

I also looked at old style G clamps as they are rock soild.

While I am still looking at the classic style hand screw clamps like Ian has. I am also looking at longer clamps for glue ups. I am debating a set pipe clamps but not sure I wan to go that path. Also looking at cast iron clamp heads and making my own rails any thoughts on this would be helpful.

I have built a few boats and for that, you need lots of clamps. They don't have to be very strong clamps so for some jobs I use clamps made out of plastic pipe. Just cut a length of pipe and cut a line along the piece. They are very good for things like holding gunnels in place till the glue dries.

Originally Posted by Kate84TS

...I am debating a set pipe clamps but not sure I wan to go that path.

What's holding you back from the Pipe Clamps?

Originally Posted by Luke Maddux

What's holding you back from the Pipe Clamps?

I have had them not hold well in the past when I was doing Joinery full time. However as I am know doing lighter work they be the way to go.