Best clamps to buy as a One-man-shop?

[Daniel Bejarano]

Hi everyone,

Perhaps someone here with a bit more experience or years in cabinetmaking than me can offer some advice or ideas about selecting a good brand of clamps to buy

I’ve used pipe clamps and bar clamps for the most part; clamps that are available for everyone to use in a community shop, but they seem to be a little too heavy and aggressive sometimes for delicate stuff. In any case, I wonder how durable the Bessey parallel ones are? I’ve looked on Craigslist and found poor options. eBay seems to have better options but I wonder how good these clamps are (I call them quick action clamps) or how reliable are the sellers that offer them.

The idea is to buy at least 2 pairs of standard sizes

Of course, I also definitely need heavy duty, wide jaw clamps as well. I don’t necessarily build delicate stuff

Thank you for your help and advice

Daniel

[Thomas McCurnin]

I use three types. I have a handfull of regular C Clamps; a wall of Jorgenson "F" Clamps (12-18" about 6-8 for each size), and another wall of Dubuque Clamps, 24-48" about 6 for each size. I also have a bag of a dozen heavy duty pipe clamp heads which are attached to a bunch of 3/4" black pipe. Don't use the latter very often, but for some things, they can't be beat.

[Frederick Skelly]

......another wall of Dubuque Clamps, 24-48" about 6 for each size.

I have a wall of clamps of different sizes and types. The Dubuque are my go-to clamps. Tools for Working Wood (in Brooklyn) sells them. LINK

[Michael Rutman]

Bessey parallel clamps are game changing for me. However many I get I never have enough. I find 4-24 inch Bessey’s to be always in use for my projects.

There are some YouTube videos on how to work without clamps you might want to check out. A lot of times people use clamps for convenience when other techniques, like a wedge, work as well. Once I learned those I stopped being stymied when I was out of clamps. I prefer a good clamp but it’s good to know that there are other ways to get pressure on a glue joint.

[johnny means]

https://www.acmetools.com/bessey-tra...162690161.html
I bought two sets of these 20 years ago, minus the racks. I've now got hundreds of clamps and these 60 are still my go to for 95% of my clamping needs.

[Ron Selzer]

Dubuque clamps are my go to clamps 8-24", 6-36", 2-48", 2-60", 2-72"
Will buy more as money comes available
Do have pipe clamps and old I beam clamps, prefer not to use unless have to

[Jim Becker]

'Tis a very subjective thing. I like my parallel clamps. Some folks prefer bar clamps. Some folks prefer pipe clamps. Honestly, what's most important is to have a LOT of clamps. LOL I have a couple dozen at least and yes, I have run out of them and had to grab my "provisional" pipe clamps more than once complete a major assembly.

I think it's good to have a mixture, too. If you rarely do something really large, but from time to time really do need to do a six foot or longer clamping situation, pipe clamps are absolutely the most economical for that. You can even have several lengths of pipe piled in the corner to adapt to the situation when you need something special or unusual. For "me", that's my primary use for pipe clamps while as noted, my normal clamp is a parallel clamp. (Bessey in my case) There are some really nice aluminum bar clamps available these days that I'd consider if I had to add to the herd.

[Richard Coers]

4 clamps is not enough to clamp up a dining table or sofa table. You'll need more than 2 pair of many sizes. I've been woodworking for 49 years, Bessey are my preferred brand now. They will easily last a lifetime if you treat them right.

[Prashun Patel]

I like my besseys. I bought peach tree and wood river cabinet clamps that stunk. The clutch wouldn’t lock in a couple from the set.! I would stick with the besseys.

That said, for panels I highly prefer pipe clamps and a set of shop made cauls. They can be configured to any size, and are way easier to set than cabinet clamps.

[Mike Burke]

I see that Bessey makes different models of parallel clamps. For those of you that use Bessey’s… which model do you prefer?

[Michael Rutman]

I bought a few Bessey clamps to try them out, I use the K clamps all the time. Of the rest, I rarely use them.

The one handed clamps aren’t as convenient as the Dewalt. The Bessey need me to hit the trigger to close the clamp while the Dewalt just seem to do the right thing.

The Angle and Miter clamp always seem to work wrong. I am just using it wrong, but so many other squaring clamps work right I haven’t bothered to figure out what I’m doing wrong.

The spring clamps are too firm for me. If I want that much pressure I’ll use a different clamp, but I have a weak hand grip.

Toggle clamps are great, but I don’t need them very often. Same with the edge clamps.

The one I do like even though I don’t need often is the V shaped one. I use it on my drill press for dowels. it’s nice.

[Derek Cohen]

Hi everyone,

Perhaps someone here with a bit more experience or years in cabinetmaking than me can offer some advice or ideas about selecting a good brand of clamps to buy

I’ve used pipe clamps and bar clamps for the most part; clamps that are available for everyone to use in a community shop, but they seem to be a little too heavy and aggressive sometimes for delicate stuff. In any case, I wonder how durable the Bessey parallel ones are? I’ve looked on Craigslist and found poor options. eBay seems to have better options but I wonder how good these clamps are (I call them quick action clamps) or how reliable are the sellers that offer them.

The idea is to buy at least 2 pairs of standard sizes

Of course, I also definitely need heavy duty, wide jaw clamps as well. I don’t necessarily build delicate stuff

Thank you for your help and advice

Daniel

Hi Daniel

I've been building furniture as a hobbiest for over 30 years. Clamps have come and gone. Pipe and bar clamps are long gone. I just find them clumsy and very heavy. It is difficult manoeuvring them around in my work space (double garage). These are the ones I now have, and I really do not need more (despite that is said about clamps! ). There are a few others tucked away, but these are the ones that tend to get used...

Bessey 600mm and 800mm K-body ...





Lightweight Bessey Uniklamps and Jorgenson quick-action, with some Chinese Bessey Uniklamp knockoffs (which are better than Bessey!).



F-clamps (300-600mm), Bessey and cheapie one-handed clamps (in 300-450mm) ...



Regards from Perth

Derek

[mark mcfarlane]

I find the Bessy Revo Jr clamps to be more than adequate for most of my glue ups. I have mostly Bessey K-Body's but bought a few Revos last year and I tend to grab them first as they are much lighter and work just fine for pulling joints together. If you want to pull together crooked boards or squeeze all the glue out of a joint, the K-Body's can put a lot of pressure on a joint, but the Revo's work fine for me to pull a straight joint together.

The Revo's are not available in longer sizes.

Also, you can get a joining plate for K-Body's that allow you to combine two clamps to make a longer clamp. They are on my Christmas list. We are opening presents tomorrow so I don't know...

[Ronnie Hurst]

The idea is to buy at least 2 pairs of standard sizes
I wonder how durable the Bessey parallel ones are?

Daniel

One thing I learned quickly is one can never have too many clamps, lol. I like Bessey, they've held up for me so far.

[Mark Bolton]

When you say one man shop I assume you are a full time one man shop and in that case my input (repeated many times in the archives) is to ditch any parallel clamp pursuit and stick with good quality pipe and F clamps. F clamps for your smaller work, pipe clamps for day to day work.

Parallels are most always not parallel, they are insanely expensive, they are NOT light, often times cumbersome to use, fussy with regards to glue on the beams, and the worst of the worst they are grossly underpowered.

You can setup 2.5-3 quality pipe clamps for the cost of a single parallel and the main theme that runs through all these threads is more clamps which means you can have 10 crappy underpowered parallel clamps that you have to treat with kid gloves and pamper, clean, protect, or you can have 25 pipe clamps and get some profitable work done. F clamps are what they are and a rack like Johnny posted is a wise investment.