Under Bench Parallel Clamp Storage ????

[Lisa Starr]

I was recently given these 3 parallel clamps.
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I've never had any of this style until these arrived and need to find a good way to store them. They seem to be 36" and 48" capacity, so are quite long and fairly heavy. Since my wall rack for hanging clamps is 1) Full 2) not designed for this style clamp, I'd like to build some type of storage for them under my bench, So far, everything I've seen photos of seems limiting. Either you have to stand on your head to get them out or slide them from the end which looks awkward to me.

Do you have another idea? Can you show me a photo?

[Prashun Patel]

If you can bolt a 1ft section of 2x4 to a wall, you can clamp these onto that. I don't have pix. Mine is about 36" off the floor. I clamp my long clamps onto it with the handle pointing up and the long stem pointing up. This makes it easier to deal with than a block mounted higher..

Under bench is awkward for me because of the stooping. I also don't always have unobstructed 36-48" clearance at the ends to be able to do this.

[glenn bradley]

I also tend to store long clamps away from my primary work area. Overhead, awkward corners or other low value real estate area.

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[Andy D Jones]

I think that clamps under the work bench would be difficult to use unless all were identical length/type, and completely interchangeable, so you don't have to bend over and look to see which one you want.

Lee Valley sells a style of wooden clamp rack for wall mounting that can easily be made in the shop with minor modifications. You could even make it mount on a French cleat, so you can adjust location as your clamp population/variety grows. This style is much more wall-space-efficient than a rail screwed to the wall to which you clamp each clamp.

Just keep separate length/style clamps on separate racks, so you never have to remove one clamp to get to the one behind it that you need.

You can also alternate these rack heights to reduce horizontal space between racks, mirroring high and low racks' clamp directions L-R-L-R.

-- Andy - Arlington TX

[Kyle Iwamoto]

I also store mine away from where I work. I just stand them "up", (clamp closed, head down) and lean them against the aforementioned low value floor space wall. Because they are tall, they easy to grab when standing up. They are not usually the clamps I grab clamping stuff. Well, my short 24" pair gets used often.....

[ChrisA Edwards]

If you could mount a pair of heavy duty, full extension drawer slides on the inside of the legs of your workbench, you could build a shallow drawer. But instead of a bottom, you would put a series of lateral strips, maybe at about 8" intervals from the front to the rear of the drawer.

You open the drawer and place the clamp, horizontally, jaws facing down, through the bottom of the drawer. The rail of the clamps rest on the bottom drawer lateral pieces. Alternate the clamps, so the weight of the jaws is spread evenly near each drawer slide.

[Lisa Starr]

Chris, Very interesting idea. I'll have to take a look at my bench tomorrow and see if this is doable.

[Doug Dawson]

Once you have some of these clamps, you’re going to get more of them. Storing them under the bench is going to get really old once you start using them. I’d heartily recommend storing them on the wall. Shopfox makes a really good parallel clamp rack, for not a lot of money.

[Lisa Starr]

Took some measurements this morning and after reading your thoughts, I've come to the conclusion I'm trying to store these parallel clamps in the wrong location. I'll take your advise and find some less valuable real estate for storing these things.

As always, I really appreciate your advise and thoughts.

[ChrisA Edwards]

I use this from Rockler, 24" ($20)

[Brian Tymchak]

I created 6 saddles (U-blocks) and turned 3 large dowels from Ash and mounted them inside the upper stretchers of my bench. I keep my 31" parallels on one end and pipe clamps on the other. The bars of the parallel clamps slide between the pipes, which will eventually be phased out (probably). Couldn't get a good shot of the saddles. The back problems are kicking up.


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[johnny means]

I tried the under bench thing. I think I discovered Dante's forgotten tenth level.