Woodworking is full of different kinds of clamps that are designed to be a solution for almost any clamping or gluing situation. Sometimes we only encounter these special situations very rarely and some of us don't have specialty clamps .. unless it is something we are doing quite often, like picture frames, or even box making.
Watch it on Youtube: https://youtu.be/bc_1l2SX97M
To help solve some of these situations and to give woodworkers some ideas of what can be done, or even some thoughts that will help them come up with other solutions that work for them, here is a quick rundown of things I have encountered in the past ...
Band Clamps
These can be very handy for clamping boxes together, especially if you are using mitered corners. I don't use these very often, but one day, a few years ago, I needed a couple of these for a glue-up I was going to do and my local hardware store didn't carry them, and I wasn't sure how far I would have to drive to get them. My solution was to go to the local dollar store to see what they had. The ratchet clamps they had in stock were more than a dollar, but they were inexpensive ... so I purchased a couple of them to try them out. As luck would have it, they worked fine. I knew I couldn't tighten down really hard, but I was only gluing and usually, you don't need extreme pressure, just enough to hold the wood in place while the glue hardens up.
This is one of my less expensive cargo straps from the dollar store a few years ago.
This one of the commercially made versions of "band clamps" that are available through Amazon
Corner Clamps
Like most clamps, there are a variety of versions of corner clamps. Often the commercial versions are a bit more flexible in the sizes of wood they can take but you can still make your own versions of these too, and they work very well as you can see in the video. If your cuts are nice and clean you can get some excellent clamping results with shop made clamps
This is my version of a corner clamp, I only have 2 of these because that is all I have needed, but it's easy to make up more should I need them
An here is just one of a variety of corner clamps that are available commercially through Amazon
Bar Clamp Extensions
Interestingly, there does not appear to be any versions of Bar Clamp extensions, but perhaps that is because it is so easy to make something like these yourself.
I have used these in the past when I have needed to add a decorative edge to a panel that is just too long to for my bar clamps to reach. Again, this is not something I do on a regular basis, but I still went out one day and purchased 4 extra-long bar clamps. These clamp extensions work well and if you don't need them very often they are a quick solution.
And don't forget about that handy, hot melt glue gun. As you can see I have had mine for many, many years and it was worth every penny for doing both temporary and in some cases permanent glue jobs, but for adding little glue blocks to a panel to assist in lengthening the clamp reach, glue glue tabs are a quick and easy way of adding length to your clamp reach.
Clamping is an important job in woodworking because, without good clamping, your joint or whatever you are clamping may fail regardless of how good the glue is, so it's important to get good close contact when you are pulling wood together and there is a world of clamps and clamp ideas to use.
Copyright Colin Knecht
woodworkweb.com
