A Safe Material holding Clamp - Tablesaw, Bandsaw and more!

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This idea has been rolling around in my head for quite a while. (lot’s of extra room in there) I wanted to make a tool. Something that would be useful to have atound the shop.

This clamp can be used on either the table saw, router table or even the band saw. It’s main purpose is to keep your hands away from the blade. You can use it if you are right or left handed.

The material came from a crate that was used to ship a machine from asia. I have no idea what kind of wood it is. All I can say is that’s it’s vary hard.

I designed this so that it could be made with only a table saw and drill and hand tools. A bandsaw or scroll saw would make a couple of parts faster though. If any of you would like to make one you can download the Following PDF file. It includes full size drawings that you can print out to use as templates.
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Click here to download Templates
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First of all let me show what it does and how it works:
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I started off by planing it all to 1/2” thickness.
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Here you can see all the printed templates I used to make it.
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I started out by laying the templates on one of the bars and transfered the locations of
all the holes. Then I clamped both bars together and drill a hole in each end and beat in
a dowel. This will hold them together while all the other holes are drilled.
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After taking them apart I countersunk all the holes.
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Then the bars were cut to 1 5/16”. This left just enough of the holes.
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Here I used spray adhesive to stick the templates to the stock. I then
cut them out. Go ahead and drill the single hole in the moving clamp, but
for the handle use the holes in the bars to guide you. This way the holes will
line up perfectly.
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Here I glued the small blocks used to build up the thickness of the clamps.
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Here I show the assembled clamp with the handle and spacer glued in between the
bars at each end. The glued up adjustable clamp is also visible.
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Instead of relying on the template for the location of the hole on the adjustable
clamp, I left a small section on the bars at the end with no holes. Insert the
clamp and use a 1/4” drill bit to transfer the location of the hole. Just hold the
drill bit against the bar and tap it with a hammer. Then drill out the hole.
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The following two pictures show how I layed out the notch in the clamps. When you
actually cut them make the cut at a little more of an angle so that only the
bottom part will touch the wood to be clamped. Make sure to leave at least 1/2”
of material above the notch. This will allow the blade to cut it and not the bars.
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Here you can see the adjustable clamp in the position where it is being moved (left)
and the engaged position (right)
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Here is the open and clamped position for the hand clamp.
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It is important to note here that the 2 moving clamp part are replaceable. They are made
to get cut up. When there is not enough material left to safely hold your stock it’s
time to make another pair. I made a couple of sets to start with.

Another note. Don’t raise the blade too far above the stock you are cutting. Don’t cut
into your bars. They are not made to be replaceable.

I made the bars 24” long because that was the length of the material I had. You can make
them longer or shorter. Just print out extra templates of the center section of the bars
to make them longer.

-- Gary - Never pass up the opportunity to make a mistake look like you planned it that way - Tyler, TX