Improving budget aluminum bar clamps for woodworking
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- Опубликовано: 15 авг 2018
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Modifying and improving cheap woodworking clamps purchased at harbor freight. These simple inexpensive improvements make the tool stronger and easier to use.
The ideas in this video were inspired by other woodworkers. The biggest influence on the subject is Life Style Woodworker Paul Sellers. If Paul didn't come up with the idea of inserting a wood core into the bar clamp, then he sure did popularize it.
Paul Sellers video: • Clamp Retrofit | Paul ...
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Have owned these for a while and never thought of this. Thanks so much
great idea Paul Sellers, thanks
Glad you liked it!
😅
Hey Hate,
I watched your video multiple times and followed your instructions to the letter. I just completed putting in some pine inserts into (2) 60" clamps I purchased at Harbor Freight yesterday.
YOUR CUTTING DIMENSIONS WORKED PERFECTLY!
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR POSTING THE VIDEO!
John
Excellent demo with no fak... show off. Good info with simplicity. We need more people to follow his way of demos
Thank you!
Thank you, I brought 2 of these from Silverline and instantly trimmed and inserted wood inside them, I also added 4 rubber pads to each clamp end.
Thank you, works a treat 👍
Excellent !! I am going to do this with some 36 inch clamps. Thanks for the tip !
Thank you! I have just purchased 3 of these today!
You did a nice job of building on Paul Sellers’ ideas.
Great idea! Thanks.
This was first done by Paul Sellars. His video is also very good. You had a nice video also.
Just tried your method for upgrading these clamps and it's the better way to do it. Table saw, calipers, and I also used my dado blades to cut the groove. Fit perfectly on a few 48" bar clamps. Thanks for the awesome video.
Glad it helped
Might be the difference in what you used to take your measurements vs what I'm using (Machinist's rules) or (given the quality) the tolerances of HF clamps, but I had to make fairly significant adjustments to your cut measurements. Took a lot of time fine-tuning everything, but overall I'm very happy with the increased rigidity in my clamps. I only purchased the clamps after viewing several modification videos such as yours.
It took me a while to figure out why I was having trouble with these. They looked like an upgrade over my cheap F-style clamps, but I kept getting worse results and I finally just went back to the F-style clamps once I realized that these were twisting and bending.
I'm going to pull them back out and give this a try. Thanks.
Great video!! Thanks
Wow, very helpful and informative thank you.
Great idea!
Nicely done! A drop of LocTite on the setscrew is helpful as is a touch of dry lube on the jaw socket for the tightening screw.
Great idea. I was about to walk over to HF and pick up a half dozen clamps. This will help.
Nicely done.
Cool! Thanks
Great ideas.
Smart design!
Great ideas!
awesome!! thanks for this.
Thats pretty legit man. Nice video!!!
Love it!!
Very nice
Awesome...will be doing this soon! The twisting when tightening ticks me off!
It would have been nice if you have Paul Sellers a bit of credit.
Been a few years since I made this video so my recollection of the decision not to credit comes down to the fact that it is a very hard thing to know who actually came up with an idea in woodworking and diy. These ideas are typically the accumulation of a combined knowledge passed down and shared in garage, workshops around the glide with no expectation of receiving credit. Also I looked at the time and didn't find that Paul said he came up with the idea on his own. I think Paul Sellers youtube channel is great and a good source, I'm subscribed to him and watch many of his videos. I appreciate your thoughts on the matter.
@@natelarge Not exactly a profoundly novel or unique idea, requiring credit. I thought of doing this exact mod when I was looking at these clamps at HF the other day. But I greatly appreciate this video, so as to modify in a reasonably quick manner, Many Thanks to NL
This was Poul Sellers original idea.
Great idea, I've already bent all mine
Cool!
Good video
I bought 4 of these clamps, 2 24" and 2 36". I've used all of them a few times now and found they work well and had zero need for any reinforcement. Sure, it doesn't hurt to stuff some wood in there, but I don't see the need or the need for any modifications at all. The value on these clamps is very high considering the low price.
Gasket cork also works for the pads.
I have several clamps they aren't harbor freight but they look pretty similar to those. I did the same and used some wood to make mine a little more rigid. I also found that drilling a small hole near the end about a 1/2-3/4 inch up from the black end cap and adding little through bolt in the hole to lock everything together which seemed to help even more with the flexing. With the improvements they are okay clamps but definitely still have limitations. Ok for light duty clamping but I wouldn't recommend using them on say a larger glue up.
I am happy about this idea because I just bought some of these clamps at HF. Also, I love how your table saw is the Kobalt job site saw. I have one of these that I use on the jobsite (in addition to my woodworking I am a licensed contractor) and I love it! It seems so flimsy but actually as long as you get the fence lined up properly, it does a great job. My woodworking cab saw is a 3 hp Grizzly, and I'm not sure which saw is more fun to use!
The Kobalt saw is going strong but after a few years I have upgraded to a Powermatic PM1000. I mostly wanted a bigger table and more reliable fence.
@@natelarge question: does that Kob. saw work ‘adequately’ if one is doing mostly 1x lumber and 1/2” (or thinner) birch plywood?
Note that I will be putting on smaller-than-10 inch blades… I’m new to woodworking, have very limited space, and need to save up for purchases beyond the trivial.
Great video Nate. And I'm really happy I found your channel, 1 new subscriber immediately. I've just received a set of 6 aluminium clamps, similar to these ones, but I've found an issue, which I wanted to ask if its a common problem with these types of clamp. At the 'threaded' end of my clamp, it actually has 2 rivets (as opposed to a single one like yours) however, this really restricts how much movement can happen on the thread. It's actually 12mm of movement on mine. My 'clamp catches' are every 25mm. As a result, I've discovered that some lengths of wood just can not be clamped. I think (if my maths is right) there would be a lot of 3mm 'blind spots' (thats prob not the right term) where the clamp can not clamp. If that makes sense to you (or anyone) is it just the nature of budget sash clamps?
Sounds like a design flaw or the manufacturer decided to cheap on the length of the screw. If you need to use them you can make a spacer to close up a gap if the work piece falls in the blind spot.
Yeah the amount adjustment on the fixed end should always be quite a bit longer than the distance between each of the slots that the other end locks into that way you can clamp any size and have plenty of adjustment.
Thanks for sharing this video. I have several of these clamps and plan to do this upgrade. Can you share where you got the rubber padding material please? I can’t seem to find it anywhere. Thanks in advance.
home depot
Any thoughts on improving the tightening handle? Removing the acorn nut capped handle and making something else?
while the handle is nothing special, I see no need to improve it from a utilitarian stand point. I bet there are some cool options to style it up.
I've bought a few "chainsaw file handles" for pickup tonight ($4 at T. Supply), and plan on boring out the center of the handle (approximately 12mm), and using a pin or bolt through the existing tightening post end to secure it. Should work a treat, if I can bore it out nicely on center!
Sir, gd mrning, sir matanong magkano?
Love the video. Short and to the point. But I thought Teflon can stain wood????
news to me.
Which table saw are you using please?
A Kobalt saw
I just now watched this, and I have a question. Do you have any issues with the indents on the bar? I have seen other reviews that state that these deform over time.
I haven't had any issues but they are not used often. Good question. Anyone else got anything to share?
@@natelarge thanks for the info. I won’t be using them a lot either and if they wear out it’s not that much money.
how much if I return my pieces ... I need 10 sets
Brush-on contact cement does the same without polluting the air... I used thick leather rather than rubber; to each his own. Remove the handle nuts and clean with alcohol. Use red thread-locker and you're done. Overall, good video.
I have these for years and use them as well Rockler's and did not have to make any "improvements. The only thing that I would consider is to elevate them and make them more stable which is the advantage the Rockler clamps have at 3 times the price.
great suggestion.
How would you suggest to elevate and make it more stable?!
Nice! But perhaps better to start the video explaining why you think they need an upgrade in the first place? I guess without the wooden core, the clamps are not very solid or perhaps even flexible? Thanks!
Good point. One their own these clamps can flex under minor stress. The wood core keeps the clamp from flexing. I appreciate the insight it to what I left out of the video. I will use that to try and make my next ones better.
Great! I’ve just bought them too and I’ll upgrade them as well over the weekend.. 😎
👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍❤❤❤❤❤💐💐💐💐💐💐
Is there a reason you didn't take the tags off?
I just didn't take notice of the tags. I still got the clamps
@@natelarge I would think it might help the clamp slide
What about just replacing the bar with box steel
That is some next level upgrade. I don't think the rest of the clamp would warrant the upgrade. Probably easier to buy better clamps if you need stronger clamps
Not bad. The newer clamps are better, they have a hard rubberized plastic pads
Thanks for the update!
Just purchased four 9/21/21 they didn’t have pads. William
Great video and incredibly helpful, but title should be "if you made the mistake of buying these clamps, here's how to salvage them". Speaking from personal experience, out of the box they are little more than toys and after the time, money and effort needed to make them usable, you would have been better off buying quality ones ("buy once, cry once").