Clamps - talk to me about clamps

[Lee Ludden]

I expect to be starting on my first furniture project (mission style coffee/end tables) soon, and was wondering about my clamp situation. For general panel glue-up and cabinet building, is there any advantage or disadvantage to one brand or style over the others or do you just buy whichever is on sale at the time?

[Peter Quinn]

I'm really sold on square jaw clamps, like bessey K-body's for example, and find myself using them in every case I can. Many different brands are available, and I imagine they all perform pretty well. I think FWW did a review in the last few years suggesting as much. Anyway, I like self squaring clamps, they are spendy, I bough bessey because they were on sale at the time.

Otherwise, for other types of clamps I have minor preferences personally but tend to buy what is on sale when I either need them or have extra money to stock up. I hope to have enough clamps before my funeral.

[David Roberts,Fitchburg,Ma]

Ditto on Bessey K bodies, but I also have pipe and bar clamps. If you have the space, my thought is, buy what seems like a great deal when its available, sort of, preemptive shopping. I am always keeping an eye on the tool sections of Craigs List, and the flea markets for tools. I have gotten the best deals however when someone is closing up shop, and selling everything. I am set pretty much on tools, but clamps and small tools, you can never have enough. I also have bought several guys lumber stock. My hope is to have my shop fully ready in three years when I retire. I recently bought 8 Besseys, (four 24" and four 30") plus almost a dozen clean pipe clamps for $120. I didn't need them, but I look at it as an insurance policy for my wife, when I go, she'll have a small fortune roll in from selling the shop.

[Kent A Bathurst]

I started with, and still use very frequently, 3/4" pipe clamps.

glue-ups, assembly, whatever. best bang for the buck IMO.

Get 6 - 10 sets. Easy to switch between pipes of different lengths. (I got lazy over the years - now I have 25 - 30 pipes, all with clamps on them).

One important tip: Get a short lentgh of 1" PVC pipe. cut into 1" lengths. On the bandsaw, cut away a section that is about 40% of the diameter. The remaining piece with snap onto the black pipe. This holds the pipe away from the glue and wood - prevents the ugly staining from the pipe.

Then I got 6 - 8 of the parallel jaw clamps.

[Jim Mackell]

Pipe clamps, the more the better. The only difficulty I have with the Bessey clamp recommendation is the manner in which they tightens. I find the wrist twisting action very hard on my old wrists. The handle on pipe clamps is much easier to tighten down. Obviously, YMMV.

[Prashun Patel]

I suggest you bite the bullet now and get quality K-body style clamps from Bessey or the like right now. I'd get 4-8 between the length of 24" and 42".

Don't buy cheap. IMHO, everyone needs one set of good clamps.

After you have these, you can buy cheaper bar clamps and c-clamps from Ebay or Harborfreight to supplement.

[Don Morris]

I've got a lot of Bessy clamps. Don't use them much any more...sometimes the flat sides are nice to have for some projects. Have lots of Bar clamps, use them all the time. Easy and relatively cheap (compared to the Bessy's) to get them cut to whatever size you find yourself needing more of depending on what you do. I even have a couple 8' clamps to do some corner clamping to bring things back into square. Remember the old saying you can never have too many clamps...that's sooooo true. Non wwers. come into my shop and see my wall of clamps and always ask "Do you really need that many clamps". The response is always "Yes!"

[Keith Harrell]

I vote for the Bessey also. I have gotten other brands and they are the last to be used in a glue up. I have pipe clamps for the really big glue up projects but only get used when I can't combine the bessy but pipe clamps are handy sometimes. I would start with Bessey 24" and 32-42" first and use the pipe clamps for the bigger jobs and slowly phase them out or not if you like them.

[Lee Schierer]

It is a fundamental law of woodworking that you can't own too many clamps. I've verified this law on several occasions when I needed a couple more clamps to get something clamped just right.

My own clamp arsenal consists mostly of pipe clamps of various lengths with the pipes threaded on both ends so longer clamps can be made with couplers, some quick grip clamps, a band clamp, a picture frame clamp and various sizes of C-clamps.

[Sean Nagle]

My "working" arsenal consists of roughly:
10 Bessey K-Body clamps from 24"-40"
18 Bessey Trademan clamps from 6"-24"
8 Pony 3/4" pipe clamps for 40"+
2 6" quick clamps
4 hand screws

I haven't encountered a project in years where I felt I needed additional clamps, but as has been said multiple time, "you can never have too many clamps" :)

[Ray Newman]

Like others, I “cut my eye teeth” on 1/2” and 3/4” pipe clamps. ‘Nevva’ let me down and I think, that the 2 pipe panel clamps do a bang up job of keeping panels flat.

https://www.adjustableclamp.com/replacementparts/products3.asp?subcatID=86

Hard to beat a pipe clamp either for cost or overall usefullness.

The only down side is that the older style clamps may not sufficiently elevate the work to turn easily the clamp head. In this regard, the newer pipe clamp designs are superior. But if you take care to position the clamp, this does not become that much of a problem.

A long 3/4” piece of black pipe is very inexpensive compared to the longer Bessey style clamps. For example, I have an 8‘ long 1/2 pipe clamp for squaring up a carcass. Wooden V-jawed blocks fit over the carcass corners and are held to the clamp heads with plastic electrical ties.

Also have several of the Bessey K-body clamps which work quite well. The biggest downside to them is that they are getting rather expensive -- like everything else these days! -- and are heavy.

I don’t think that you can wrong with the newer or older design pipe clamps. They will exert a good amount of pressure!

If you opt for pipe clamps -- do not use galvanized pipe. The galvanize coating is slick and the clamp fixture will more often than not slip on the pipe and not hold as well if not at all.

[glenn bradley]

I reach for my other clamps only after I have exhausted my parallel clamps (which isn't often). I do have a lot of f-style clamps from my early days in the hobby and a place to hang them. I also have a dozen pipe clamps hanging behind a rolling tool cabinet; they've been resting peacefully for about 2 years. They are on galvo and I have never had a slip problem but, they are hella-heavier than K-body's. Just thought I'd salt the thread with differing opinions ;-)

In a nutshell:
- I prefer parallel clamps for almost everything I do; 24" used the most, 12's an 18's after that, the longer the lesser (you may do something different).
- I am glad to have the f-styles when I need more clamps (4" and 6" get the most use) although I wish I would have spent the money on other things.
- There is nothing like a pipe clamp when that is what is called for; you can really crush stuff with them. I'm glad I have them, use them seldom but, they're cheap.
- I have no aluminum bar clamps but can see their value if you do a lot of panel work.

If I was starting over, I would buy parallel clamps until I found something I couldn't use them for. Then I would buy that other type. Exception; I use the heck out of my 4 Bessey mighty mini's (about $5 at Lowe's). Home Depot one dollar, 2" spring clamps come in handy too.

[Brian Tymchak]

If you opt for pipe clamps -- do not use galvanized pipe. The galvanize coating is slick and the clamp fixture will more often than not slip on the pipe and not hold as well if not at all.

If you do go with pipe clamps, and use black pipe, and also assuming you use oak in your mission style furniture, make sure you use tape or some other barrier between the pipe and the wood. Any moisture from glue, etc, can cause a nasty black stain on your wood where the pipe might be in contact.

BTW, if you go with pipe, you can always use $2 pipe couplers to do the same job as those $15 Bessey K-Bar extenders.

Brian

[Kyle Iwamoto]

IMO

1) There is NO "perfect" clamp. All clamps have different applications

2) You cannot have too many clamps

I have to go against the grain and say I prefer the Jet parallel clamps to the Besseys. 2 reasons, 1) they stay where you put them, in other words they don't slide around on the bar by themsleves. You have to move them. This could be good or bad, depending on your point of view. 2) they have inches engraved on them. You can roughly set up the clamps before you drop in your work. Pretty handy, IMO.

[Tom Hammond]

I use the standard ol' Jorgensen hand-screw bar clamps. They provide enough pressure, are easy enough to adjust, and don't cost much. Never had a problem with panels bowing, partly because I C-clamp cross-bars across the panel ends, partly because I joint the boards alternately... face vs. back... to make the joining edges parallel even if my jointer fence is slightly out of square to the table, and partly because I don't over-pressure the joints.

I've seen a lot of guys with a lot of Bessey clamps that were 3 times the cost of mine... but I've never seen the advantage. My experience is that clamps are only supplements to good technique and the heavier they are, the harder they are to use.

[Steve Kohn]

Like most guys starting out my selection in clamps was highly variable. Pipe clamps, spring clamps, bar clamps, etc. I had some of everything. But I never seemed to have enought of the right kind of clamp to do the project I was working on at that time.

My direction in collecting clamps changed significantly after watching Norm pull down these red parallel jaw clamps off his rack. I quickly learned they were Bessey's. I fought thru the sticker shock when I found them in the WW catalogs and bought 4 of them. And so began my ongoing obsession with K-Body clamps.

I now have 42 Bessey's. All of them are the old style, none of the Revo. They vary from 12 inches all the way to 56 inches long. As I was adding to my collection I noticed that there was a glaring gap in the Bessey offerings. They did not make an 18 inch long clamp. And I often found myself wanting an 18 inch clamp. So I went out and bought 4 Gross Stabil 18 inch clamps. In my opinion the Bessey is a much superior design, but that is not the point of this narrative.

What I learned is that the head and bars are different between various options. Therefore it is inevitable that you still will not have the correct clamps because the throat, bar, head size, or somthing is different between the last clamps you have on the wall AND THAT WILL SCREW UP THE PIECE YOU ARE TRYING TO CLAMP BEFORE THE GLUE DRIES.

So therefore, I will not buy any other brands of clamps. I will not buy the new Revo from Bessey. I will roam the ether (CL and/Ebay) looking for the old style Bessey clamps. And yes I am aware that Peachtree is supposed to have them, but the last time I looked was out of stock on the 12 inchers.

I figure I still need some more 12 inch, 31 inch, and maybe even some super long Bessey's before my appetite is sated. Wish me well.

[Kent A Bathurst]

.........I now have 42 Bessey's.........I still need some more.........before my appetite is sated.

There's a 12-step program - somewhere - for you Steve. Good luck .:D

[Hey - it coulda been worse - it coulda been 42 LN planes.......]