I scored 8 sets of these “double bar” clamps on craigslist for $40 about 8 months ago. You are supposed to use wood as the rails and it sandwiches your workpiece while edge gluing panels to keep them all flat. However, the rails will bow inward when pressure is applied. This is compensated by cutting a taper on the inside faces of the wood clamping rails per instructions. This did not appeal to me so I decided on 11ga. 1 3/4” square steel tubing. If I were to make them out of wood, I would want a decent hardwood, which would cost near the same as the steel. So being a machinist, I knew I could make it stronger and here it is. The tubes are cut to 48” and I can clamp up to 36” between the pushers. I tapped a series of 10-32 holes so the 12 position brackets can be moved along the top rail depending on the width of my workpieces. I can clamp from 1/2” thick up to 3 1/2” thick. The goemetry of these clamps are a neat idea, the more you tighten the screw, the tighter is squeezes the rails together, keeping it all parallel. I think Rockler used to sell these sets, but I havent seen them new anywhere .
-- I haven't had this much fun since hogs ate my little brother. www.rockybluewoodworks.com
10 comments so far
CovenantCreations
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127 posts in 1075 days
#1 posted 741 days ago
Wow looks great. I saw these clamps somewhere, and was wondering how they work also. I may just have to do a similar setup. I like that your glue up table doesn’t have to be perfectly flat, as the clamps only rest on 2 points.
Bluepine38
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2106 posts in 1257 days
#2 posted 740 days ago
Shopsmith sells the complete clamps, a complete set of three 48” clamps would be over $200 delivered.
Do you use wide masking tape to keep the steel bars from staining the wood when you clamp it? That is
a wonderful set of clamps that will last you a long time. I am trying to figure out how to make a set
from scratch, but it would take a lot of work. Thank you for sharing.
-- As ever, Gus-the 74 yr young apprentice carpenter
NBeener
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4856 posts in 1346 days
#3 posted 740 days ago
Nothing succeeds like excess !
Those are VERY cool !
-- -- Neil
RockyBlue
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265 posts in 865 days
#4 posted 740 days ago
The steel cost me $125, to make 6 sets, so it looks like I’m money ahead compared to shopsmith. In the 5th picture you can see rolls of paper in the background. I have many “endrolls” of paper from a printing company. Many are newspaper and some are slick magazine paper. I will lay a strip of paper between the wood and steel so I won’t have to constantly scrape glue off the clamps. But if I ever have to, I can just DA the rails clean again. I am also building a table with notches for the clamps to sit in with a notch every few inches so that I can adjust the spacing as needed. The rolls of paper have endless uses and are free. When the rolls get too low for a print run, they just put a new giant roll on and toss the partial roll.
-- I haven't had this much fun since hogs ate my little brother. www.rockybluewoodworks.com
Gene Howe
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3199 posts in 1600 days
#5 posted 740 days ago
Those are pretty darned nice.
What Neil said, too!
Do you work as a machinist at a printing co.?
-- Gene 'The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him.' G. K. Chesterton
ratchet
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1192 posts in 1959 days
#6 posted 739 days ago
Holy smoke those are real beauts!!!
I be proud to own those.
Nice work.
Bertha
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13115 posts in 865 days
#7 posted 739 days ago
That’s a slick setup. That steel’s going nowhere.
-- My dad and I built a 65 chev pick up.I killed trannys in that thing for some reason-Hog
RONFINCH
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143 posts in 1096 days
#8 posted 739 days ago
Hmmmmm, where can I order 3 sets? Do you take paypal? Great job!
BigTiny
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1653 posts in 1060 days
#9 posted 738 days ago
You can make a similar set with hardwood rails (or steel if you prefer) and threaded rod. Drill through both ends and inset the threaded rods, then jam two nuts together on one end of each rod as a stop, with a flat washer between them and the rail. Use another nut and washer on the other end and tighten both ends evenly.
-- The nicer the nice, the higher the price!
christopheralan
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1065 posts in 1892 days
#10 posted 738 days ago
Those are cool!
-- christopheralan http://www.projectwoodworks.com
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