# Making your own holdfast ...



## blackcherry (Dec 7, 2007)

Just read this online on how to convert a bar clamp to a holdfast for your work bench…http://woodworkingtips.com/etips/etip090100ws.html


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## FirehouseWoodworking (Jun 9, 2009)

Cool idea. Thanks for sharing.

Cheers!


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## RussellAP (Feb 21, 2012)

That's a great idea, you could do the same with round bar clamps too and you don't have to drill, just put the end on and run it up tight.


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## Kentuk55 (Sep 21, 2010)

Very slick. Thnx for the link


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## Beginningwoodworker (May 5, 2008)

Great idea.


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## 489tad (Feb 26, 2010)

Good tip. A couple of my clamps have removalbe heads.


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## hhhopks (Nov 22, 2011)

So, why are good traditional holdfast so expensive?
It seems to be just a 1/2" bar bent in shape with bent tip pounded flat.

Anything special about the steel?

Can someone share some light on the difference?

Has anyone actually made their own traditional holdfast?


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## blackcherry (Dec 7, 2007)

It a long process to make using carbon to heat up the cold steel and plenty of pounding….


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## Howie (May 25, 2010)

Looks good, think I better make a couple. Thanks for the tip.


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## joek30296 (Jul 21, 2010)

Well, if that ain't the coolest idea I've seen in a while. Thanks for sharing.


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## sedcokid (Jul 19, 2008)

Great…...Cool!!

Thanks for sharing


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## superdav721 (Aug 16, 2010)

nice tip


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## jim_hanna (Feb 18, 2014)

I was intrigued by the idea of using a batten with a birdsmouth notch to hold a piece against a single dog for planing after seeing a video demo ( at link. It looked really effective at holding the stock for diagonal planing, yet the stock can be lifted and flipped over very quickly.
An essential for using the birdsmouth batten is some sort of holdfast to clamp it down to the bench.
The large solid metal holdfasts which you fix with a hammer are too pricey for me as is the Veritas Bench holddown with the screw tightening.

Also all of the above have long stems which stick down below the bench when holding thin stock, I don't really want to lose my underbench shelving.

I found this design using an F clamp with the head removed and a swivel added to the end of the bar. Unfortunately any F clamps I have with a decent sized throat are much too big to go through my ¾ dog holes.

Then I found the Sjoberg QSh holdfast, it doesn't protrude below the bench and looks a bit like an F clamp with the head removed and a kink in the stem to wedge it in the bench.

To make something like this I drilled out the pin on a large F clamp to remove the head, then drilled out another hole further up the shaft offset enough to give me a kink something like the catalogue holdfasts.
I used a 4" long ¾ UNF bolt as the stem to enter the bench. After knocking down the threads a bit the bolt is a good fit in my ¾ dog holes, it locks down the work solidly in my 2 ¾" thick pine bench, total cost very little.


















My holddown made from the F clamp and ¾ bolt was so useful that I've made a second one. The washer on the bolt is just a repair washer drilled and filed out to ¾. It's nothing to do with the wedging clamping action, it's only there to stop the end of the clamp bar dinging the bench when I push the bolt into the dog hole (DAMHIKT)


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