Tip O' the Day from the Village Idiot

[Rick Potter]

I have a lot of projects where I need short clamps, and the Quick Grip clamps are a mainstay in my shop. Quite often though, I need clamps a couple inches longer than the Quick Grips 6 3/4", so I break out my 24" bar clamps. These work out fine, but the unneeded extra length is usually in the way.

So....Harbor Freight has some 24" (actually 18" or so) lightweight aluminum bar clamps for $6 (on sale for $4). These are cheap enough to play around with by just cutting off the aluminum bar to 12" or whatever length is handy in your world. Presto....cheap short clamps.

Rick Potter

[Scott Hildenbrand]

URL?

Only ones I found were $7.99 with no sale.

http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/Displayitem.taf?itemnumber=38183

[Leo Vogel]

I had two of these for all of about five minutes. Broke the pins that were in the sliding part of the clamp. I thought they were really junk.

[Salem Ganzhorn]

I had two of these for all of about five minutes. Broke the pins that were in the sliding part of the clamp. I thought they were really junk.

I agree. I bought two of these and after a couple projects they started misbehaving. And this type of clamp is annoying anyway :). HF's metal bar clamps sometimes go on sale for ~1-6$ depending on length. These are not great clamps but they are a good deal: http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=96214

[Jared Larrow]

I agree. I bought two of these and after a couple projects they started misbehaving. And this type of clamp is annoying anyway :). HF's metal bar clamps sometimes go on sale for ~1-6$ depending on length. These are not great clamps but they are a good deal: http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=96214

I bought a couple of these bar clamps a few years ago. For light duty clamping they're adequate, but under any real clamping pressure they bend quite a bit, screwing up straight line pressure.

[Dave Wagner]

Check Ebay, I picked up (8) - 24" flat bar type clamps for $9.99 (1 lot). No one else bid on them.!! :)

There are usually some LOT auctions of these. Yes, cheap ones, but for quick and dirty projects in the shop, they work great.

[Richard M. Wolfe]

I've not used the aluminum bar clamps - they seem awfully flimsy just from handling them in the store. And I wouldn't recommend the metal bar clamps that HF sells now. The kind that used to be available with a chrome finish were just about as good as the Pony metal bar clamps. But the ones now with the black finish bar are not nearly as good. A friend twisted the handle off one and also stripped the threads trying to really tighten something.

[Dave Mura]

Check ebay, you'll find some cheap