Clamps and woodworking are integral to one another. If you do woodworking, you need to use clamps ... sometimes lots of them. Unfortunately, clamps are often awkward to use, especially when you have coated your wood with wood glue and it starts drying the moment it is spread on your wood and if you don't attach the 2 pieces of wood in a timely manner, the glue will stick poorly, or not at all. And of course, that is the time for you wood clamps to start acting up ... and if you are like me, always seem to have to be unscrewing the handles and getting them in the correct positions. Gluing could be the most stressful time of woodworking ... at least it is for me and that's why I try to do everything I can to make my clamps more user-friendly because for some reason I never seem to remember to take the time to prepare them for their clamping ahead of time.
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Check out some these ideas to help make clamping a bit less stressful ...
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Clamp Magnetized
These rare earth magnets used for many projects, including these replaceable wooden pads for C-Clamps are available many places including the Woodworkweb Amazon Store, or other places such as Lee Valley and others. If you decide makes a few sets of these, don't forget to make the through hole so that you can push the magnets our from the back so they can be used on other woodworking jigs and accessories as well.\
Installing new One-Hand-Clamp Jaw Pads
The foam used in making the replacement pads for this one-handed clamp is available from many craft stores and craft departments. They come in a variety of thicknesses and are often available with an adhesive back or non-adhesive back, and both have their place. In this case, I used the NON-adhesive back and instead glued the pads on using contact cement which is pretty much permanent ... but it can be cut or scraped off if needed.
Bar Clamp Pads
The pads for the bar clamps did use the same foam padding, but in this case, I used the adhesive back version as I am not certain that I want to keep these foam pads on permanently, and that is the benefit to adhesive and non-adhesive backed pads.
Bar Clamp Speed Accessory
Adding these dowels is a great way to speed up the use of these bar clamps, and if you make sure your dowels are just slightly tight in the handles you can remove them at any time.
Toggle Clamps On the Move
I am forever moving these toggle clamps from one jig to another and using this quick release method saves me time and effort.
Copyright Colin Knecht
Woodworkeb.com
