Thread: Bandsaw clamps: The making of...

Here is how I made those bandsaw clamps

Started off with some hollow bar... The ruler in the picture will show the size... The stuff I used was recycled out of a semi-trailer axle that was given to me...

First I cut a slice about 30mm or so long...

Next up is cleaning up the ends in the lathe, pretty straight forward... For the record I did one on my Hercus 260 and it did it easily... You can clean up the OD or ID whatever you want... I did the OD only as it was pretty grubby. I just took off enough to clean up the sides... It is not critical the width so long it is not too skinny and bends in use...

Next I scribed a line down the centre as shown in the picture, a hole has to be drilled in the middle so you could mark the middle of the OD of the hollow bar at this stage if you want (I just used the DRO in the mill).. Shove in the vice in the mill or drill press and line up one of the lines as shown with a square to it is vertical... Centre the drill, and drill your hole.... for a say 26mm width piece I drilled a 3/4" hole through one side only...

Remove and take to your bandsaw, or other cutting device say a slitting saw in the mill would do the job as well... line up the two scribed lines you made, so it splits the piece in half right through the hole you just drilled...

You now have two pieces...

You can either deburr and end here, or as I did press them down a bit.. No idea of how many tonnes it took to squash them... Not a massive amount... I will take a total guess at five tonnes...

When you squash them it flares the sides out a bit, so I roughly ground off the flaring, just by eye.. back to the mill and face mill the ends as shown in he picture... Deburr then apply whatever protective coating you want...

Use as illustrated...

Another mod would be to mill a slot along their back and radius the none drilled end, They could them be used as milling clamps on the milling machine... although with a slot milled it would reduce their strength accordingly, so to do that you would want them a bit wider, 35mm+ i guess..