Retrofitting Aluminium clamps
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6 February 2014 at 11:30 am #27331
Just a quick note to say I took Paul’s advice and retrofitted 4 of my cheap aluminium clamps (link: http://paulsellers.com/2011/11/4473/) before gluing up a clock last night.
What a difference! Seriously, if you’ve been avoiding buying these clamps because they’re so useless out-of-the-box (and they are), spend 20 minutes upgrading them. You won’t be sorry.
8 February 2014 at 9:46 pm #27469I bought ( 7 ) of these clamps ( 5 ) 24″ and ( 2 ) 36″ from Harbor Freight to start with and retrofitted them like Paul and have had no issue’s with them at all. I have several Bessy’s which are great clamps but can be awkward for some projects as they are heavy.
Steve
Hi Dave,
What I found also helps a bit in addition to the wood is to put a nut and bolt through the very end of the bar. This in effect “closes the box” of the beam and feels like it adds rigidity. This was purely an experiment but I think it does help so I’m doing it to all of them. While I was at it I also swapped out the pin at the other end with a nut and bolt. Just my 2 cents.
They are good value for the money. The harbor freight version doesn’t have the problem Paul sometimes faced in his videos that the end caps fall of the rods because they are threaded at each end and fitted with nuts.
One thing I don’t like is that the pin that connects the front jaw to the acme rod is loose at some of my clamps and so two of them are pinless and have to be placed on the bottom of glue-ups to prevent them from falling apart. Considering the fact that 10 equal the prize of one quality clamp one can get along with them comfortably.I got my second clamp delivery today. My first 24″ in 2012 was from harbor freight (blue) and today I got a bunch of longer 65″ ones sold under the brand name of Silverline (red). They look similar to the ones sold by axminster and, well, they all look pretty much the same on first glance.
But there are really some differences in the materials.
The harbor freight version is sturdier and if you have a look at the profile you can see, that the side walls are twice as thick.
The clamping system looks similar beside the fact that the front jaw is connected to the threaded rod by a screw instead of the pin discussed a bit earlier. The grooves for the rear jaw in the aluminum seem to be a bit deeper at the ones from harbor freight.
All in all, I would go for the ones from HF next time again, although the new ones will be also fine once strengthened with some wood, hopefully.
Before getting the new clamps I was pretty sure that they are all made by the same asian company and sold in different colors by different importers but obviously this is not the case or there was a decrease in built quality in the last 16 months.
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You must be logged in to view attached files.15 February 2014 at 5:31 pm #27884I just did 4 three footers yesterday. Did some two footers a while ago. They work great.
The sidewalls of my “old” harbor freight clamps are 2 mill and the new ones from Silverline just 1. That’s very thin and it’s not even a standardized size of the aluminium. Standards are 20/40/2 or 20/40/3 (mill) or thicker.
I will fill them with hickory bedded in concrete 😉11 June 2015 at 5:51 pm #127682@tomkelf – Tom, I used pine for my retrofit. The inside of the clamps I have is not rectangular, but slightly thinner near the clamp’s ratchet mechanism fits than the open end. That meant that I had to plane my inserts to fit properly. You probably don’t want to plane MDF, but if you have a tablesaw, that could work for you. It should be a good friction fit – not loose enough to slip out in use, but not too tight you can’t insert it. This is why using wood is preferable – you can fine tune the fit with a plane.
If you can get the MDF to fit properly, I don’t see any reason why not to use it. Unless wood resists torsional forces better than MDF. Have fun with the retrofit. It’s worth it.
12 June 2015 at 1:11 pm #127693i wouldn’t use MDF as it swells very easy with any moisture in the air and if it does get damp it will crumble inside the clamp and the sides are to smooth to get a friction fit,and you get a good amout of resisdence from solid wood.
Thanks for the advice Matt & Eddy.
I would prefer to use ‘real’ wood anyway its just I had some lying around.
I did get it to fit! (used a plane though!). I have only fitted 1 with the MDF but due to the advice, particularly the moisture/swelling issue. I will fit the rest with real wood.Thanks for the advice.
Well took your advice and decided to use real wood, i got some old pallet wood from work.
On another note if anyone is quite new to woodworking (planing, sawing, sharpening etc), then I highly recommend doing this retrofitting.
I’ve just done 8 x 24″ and 4 x 36″ clamps using knotty old pallet wood and I decided to handsaw them all, then plane them to fit and due to the knots I had to resharpen too.
All good practice and now I have 12 good clamps (for a bench lamination) and a lot more understanding of how to plane properly (OK just better)!25 June 2015 at 10:32 am #128024glad you enjoyed the journey, a very wise man once said it’s not what you make it’s how you make it,lol
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