......or have too many clamps. I watched a video on making your own clamps. One person commented that, as nice as they are, you can go to Harbor Freight and buy them for about five or six bucks each. I disregarded this as the rantings of someone who would rather take out his debit card than build something he would be proud of. I opted to build my own. After about 8 hours, I tend to agree with the skeptic. Here is what I have, so far. I need to buy some more all thread in order to finish the last two clamps. They work well, though they are slow and a little awkward. Commercial clamps have screws that are half left threads and half right threads. This allows them to open and close twice as fast. Also, you can spin them by holding both handles. These require spinning each handle separately. However, they do work and they work well, so they are a success, with some reservations. Will I build more? No way. I'll get the ChiCom Harbor Freight cheepies.
Just a brief overview of their construction. The jaws are two thicknesses of 1/2 plywood, faced with maple.
I cut 5/8 steel rod into 2 inch lengths. They were drilled. half of them to 3/8 and the other half to 5/16. Those were tapped to 3/8 NC. The handles are walnut with 3/8 coupling nuts epoxied into holes bored in the ends. They are double nutted onto the all thread. There were a few more minor steps that I won't bother entering since if you do decide to build your own I don't want to be held responsible for your frustration. At least I can say that I built them myself. If anyone asks, I'll tell them it was a piece of cake
No comments:
Post a Comment