Square jaw cabinet clamp racks...whats the best storage solution?

[Peter Quinn]

I just got a few more cabinet clamps, added some 36" jorgensons, and I discovered two things:


1) My home made mobile clamp rack is now full.

2) My home made mobile clamp rack is not good. In fact....it sucks. Bad casters, whole thing cobbled together on the fly out of found parts on the fly, roughly resembling those rolling bessey racks. Very roughly. But hey..its mostly made of wood! Its just awful.

So I'm looking for a creative solution to store 15-20 cabinet clamps, doesn't have to be mobile, at some point that made sense to me but not so much anymore, could be though, does have to be as space conservative as possible. I have other clamps accommodated (f style bars, pipes, jorgy I bars, c clamps, etc), but the cabinet clamps all sort of live near the assembly bench now. Its time to give them a more gracious home...please help! Any ideas that work appreciated. Help me retire the rusty scupper.

[Matt Day]

The simplest/easiest storage, what I have, is simply a 3/4" board fastened to a flat wall. The lip at the back of the top jaw can rest on the board and gravity will hold it in place. If you have wall space and don't need your clamps mobile, the wall is a good storage place, especially if you have a small shop since the cart takes up valuable floor space.

[glenn bradley]

I ended up here. They mount anywhere along the cleat wall. Rather than make different sizes I made them to fit my Baileys which means they fit K-body, Uni-Klamp and other f-style clamps.

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[Jim Becker]

I made simple wall-mount brackets to hang them from...similar to the top of that portable rack in your photo. Easy to make from scrap plywood!

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v646/a-j-adopt/Woodworking/IMG_2943_zps1b912093.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v646/a-j-adopt/Woodworking/IMG_2944_zps144b18b3.jpg

[Bill Neely]

I've just put some EMT on brackets along the wall then the hang the clamps handles over the pipe.

[Paul Cahill]

A lot more effort than some of the others, but very compact. I also used it as an exercise in making box joints. I copied a design posted here by Alan Lightstone some years ago, but it has been around a while.

Paul


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[Charlie Velasquez]

1) My home made mobile clamp rack is now full. actually, if you raise the handle to the top and clamp to the top cleat you have space for 12 more clamps inverted resting on their top jaw.

[Paul Murphy]

I recently went through the same search for clamp racks, and found this:
http://www.woodsmithshop.com/download/205/clamprack.pdf
Woodsmith plans were a great starting point, as they had plans for both pipe and F-clamps. With a look at the designs posted on the forum, I came up with plans to fit the clamps I own or am likely to buy.

[Paul McGaha]

My clamp storage:

[Andy Pratt]

after telling myself I would make shop-made racks for multiple years, I picked up the metal ones from rockler on sale, they are very space efficient and work great

[Mike Nguyen]

My clamp rack was full also and can only hold 24 clamps and I just bought some more so I need to redo the rack and I came up with this rack. I just finished installing it tonight and for the same wall space, I can have up to 37 clamps now.
Mike296828

[mreza Salav]

Peter, my clamp Rack is very similar to yours just a bit bigger and I have multiple rows instead of one. If you add one more horizontal 2x4 below the top one you can easily hang one row of clamps in between the top ones.
My issue is that my Rack is full AND it is way too heavy too move around (have some 50 or so heavy clamps plus several smaller ones on it).

[ian maybury]

I'm tight for wall area. This design isn't original, but seemed the best approach in terms of maximising the use of space:

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Self tapping masonry screws seem to work well when lots of pull out resistance is required - much stronger than plugs...

[Dan T Jones]

I'm with Glen. When your clamps are hung like that you use up way less wall space (precious). I make the sides (supports) more triangular out of 2 pieces of scrap plywood attached to the sides of a piece of 2x2 that is affixed to the wall. The triangle is about 12" on top (where the clamps rest). My walls are osb so I can screw the 2x2 directly to the wall.
Dan

[Jim Becker]

Ian, you are spot on about space efficiency with that type of rack. If I ever had to re-do my setup, I'd likely consider that arrangement for good reason.

[Mike Nguyen]

I like Glenn and Ian clamp rack because it stores more clamps for limited space. However, my clamp rack is right next to my car so I can only have about 7 inches deep.

[glenn bradley]

Someone asked about the construction of the arms on my version and the holding power. I used 3/4" oak dowels as 'crossdowel' nuts. The hardened FHWS go through the 3/4" back and into the "endgrain" of the 3/4" ply are passing through the dowel with the grain oriented for strength. A second screw goes below that to prevent twist.

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So far this has proven strong enough for a half dozen or more 31" K-body clamps (and a bevy of 24") that get taken off and put back on pretty frequently.

[Lee Ludden]

I built a double deck cabinet to hold mine. Here is the front. Open the doors and there are French cleats holding more
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[Kent A Bathurst]

I took the Occam's Razor approach - the simplest solution is usually the correct one. Or, better yet - the laziest one.

In the basement, added a stud wall to enclose a laundry/storage area. From my side, I see studs.

I air-gun nailed some narrow 1 x across 4 studs @ 6' +/-. Close the clamp head, and hang the handles over the 1 x. Down below that , I nailed some more 1 x for the clamp's bars to rest against when they are hanging - may not be necessary, but haven't put a hole thru the drywall so far. Still early days tho - only 12 years.