Thread: Torquata Heavy Duty Parallel Clamps

Thanks for the heads-up on this one, David. I grabbed a set of 600's and a couple of 800's - missing from the collection since you (with extreme prejudice and malice aforethought) gave up the clamp game and stopped being my preferred provider.

Apologies for the poor pics - I just snapped a few quickies this afternoon. It's really difficult to see the quality through pics rather than seeing the physical thing.

Green torquata heavy duties vs David's (Aldav) black vs a Very Red Thing from McJing. For the record, I detest the McJing. It's a clunky prehistoric beast that is a pain in the unmentionables. It only comes out as a last resort (which is unfortunately all too often), and I swear at it a lot.

Aldav's are excellent - I use them all the time. The green guys are next level. It's always reassuring when you feel a thin layer of machine oil on a new tool out of the box... they've got a great little trigger release thing that stops the clamp head wizzing down the shaft every time you hold the darn thing vertical, and they are built like tanks - see the difference in width and height compared to the rest of the collection (don't be fooled by the McJing - it's mostly plastic casing, and those stupid rubber faces keep coming off).

Tempted to get a couple more.... If you haven't jumped on the band wagon, get in quick - they're more useful than toilet paper in an apocalypse.

torquata5.jpg torquata4.jpg torquata1.jpg torquata8.jpg torquata3.jpg torquata2.jpg torquata6.jpg torquata7.jpg

The re-branded Jet clamps were the first thing I imported. It took a long time to clear them as most people were not prepared to accept that they were in fact re-branded Jet's. I used to get all this crap about Jet clamps being made in Europe, etc. etc. You'll still hear people saying this about Besseys; made in Germany, yeah sure. I'd be surprised if they're even assembled in Germany. These 'Jet' clamps have been sold in China with so many different stickers on them you wouldn't believe it.

Considering the state of the A$ at the moment Timbecons offer price is an absolute bargain, so much cheaper than an equivalent Bessey. As you rightly point out they're chunky buggers. With a bit of judicious drilling you can even join them with the Bessey extenders.

Sorry to revive an old thread. I just purchased a set of these (2x 600, 2x 1000, 4x blocks).

The fixed end of the clamps is not a perfect 90deg to the bar, whereas the movable end presents at 90deg. This was a quick check with a known good square.

I am a beginner and was thus looking for reasonable quality clamps to suit me for my hobby builds for a long time.

Does the fixed end not being perfectly square to the bar present issues when clamping?

I could envisage this putting an uneven pressure on the work and possibly leading to the work wanting to twist/move or putting undue pressure on part of the work whereby the top of the clamp face contacts the work first rather than the whole face of the clamp contacting the work, as would be the case if the fixed end was square to the bar. Perhaps I'm overthinking?

If I close the clamps they vary in how off from 90 they are (comparing the moveable vs fixed faces). One of the four is close enough to square, the worst is perhaps 1.75-2deg off. All of them are less than 90deg.

Deciding if I need to return the ones that are not close to 90deg off the bar etc. IE do I need to find replacements that are closer to 90deg or safe to live with them as is.

Pic showing what I mean below.

PXL_20220523_065420095.jpg

If there is any appreciable pressure wound on to the clamp in your picture that is not good. If on the other hand you've only tensioned the clamp lightly to bring the jaws together at the top things may not be too bad. From the description you've given and the picture it's impossible to tell if there's a problem or not. To check whether the clamp jaws come together parallel when under pressure clamp a square piece of timber between the jaws beside the bar and over the full depth of the jaws - you'll need something say 19mm thick and at least 130mm high - and check for any misalignment. I'll post a picture of what I mean tomorrow.

I agree with what Aldav said. You will travel a mile or two to find any clamps that close with jaws absolutely parallel unless they have a pivoting jaw as some do, but the flex in the jaws should easily accomodate that & once screwed up, apply sufficiently even pressure for most purposes.

Depending on what you are clamping, you might need jaws to close perfectly but for typical joinery situations, you'll find there is sufficient flex in the jaws of most clamps to distribute the pressure evenly enough. In fact you shouldn't need to apply huge amounts of pressure, if the parts don't come together nicely under moderate pressure on a "dry fit", it's a good idea to find out why & try to correct it rather than squeeze the daylights out of it. That's a sure recipe for failure down the track.

The jaws on my home-made bar clamps aren't perfectly mated when not under pressure, but there is sufficient flex in both the moving & fixed jaw to accomodate that & they do the jobs for which they are intended quite satisfactorily:
3 1M bar clamps.jpg

The old style handscrews can be tightened so that the jaws apply pressure unevenly, or dead-even:
7 Crows ash_Rose alder.jpg

Which is occasionally useful, but you can't tighten these clamps off-parallel by very much or it tends to snap the centre screw. The "jorgensen" version with metal threads can be tightened off-parallel to a much greater degree, but it's extremely seldom that you need to do that, & when you do try to do it, they simply slide off the work, so you end up doing what I do & making wedged caul.....

Cheers,

Welcome to the forum inertia8 .

Thank you both for the detailed replies.

That photo is with a bit of pressure applied but not clamping pressure.

As I was awaiting sleep to arrive last night I did wonder whether I needed to put a square piece of timber in the jaws and tighten to see if the clamp face would straighten under pressure. I will do so later tonight with a piece of messmate and report back.

Cheers

Originally Posted by verawood

Welcome to the forum inertia8 .

Thank you, I'm a bit of a long time lurker. Very much a beginner but keen to do a few nice things around the house, so decided when buying some Freud router bits that I would treat myself to the clamp kit that seemed reasonable value at $349.

ok, I still need to find a perfectly square piece.. the messmate that I have was slightly out but I think I was able to sufficiently satisfy myself that the clamps will be fine for my hobby usages. One of the 600mm clamps was worse than the others but upon re-testing it seems good enough.. I'll retest when I get a perfectly square piece, as it seemed that when the clamp faces were tighted to the point of being square to the work piece, I was able to see a slight gap between the bar and the work piece, close to the fixed clamp end (the ones that are not square).

Got suckered into the sale and spent a bit of money on 3x 4 packs

20220527_211153.jpg

Didnt realise they had these nice measurements on them

20220527_211540.jpg

I've got a few of these green HD clamps that I picked up last time they were on sale.
They're ok, but if I was going go again, I'd probably go for solid bar sash clamps instead
https://www.timbecon.com.au/torquata-t-bar-sash-clamps

Here's why:

• One of my green ones dropped from it's rack and hit the floor with the handle first. It's polypropelene (I think), and the handle was shorn in half. Unusable.
• Another one doesn't clamp up anywhere near parallel. It's off by a lot, even with as much pressure as I can apply with my hands. Timbecon is going to replace it, which is great, but it's caused a few tricky glue ups and marred a few pieces before I realised what was going on.
• I think sash clamps are a bit more versatile. For example, last week I glued up 1600 case. I was able to join two shorter sash clamps together by sharing a pin. If I was relying on Parallel Clamps, I'd need to have lots of the big expensive 2m ones.

Originally Posted by aldav

With a bit of judicious drilling you can even join them with the Bessey extenders.

Interesting. I wondered if this is possible, as I've got a cabinet stand that longer than my longest sash clamps.
How much drilling is involved? Is it just boring out the existing hole to a larger diameter?

Originally Posted by rogerwilco

How much drilling is involved? Is it just boring out the existing hole to a larger diameter?

Yes.