About Woodworking Clamps

Video Transcript

"Hi I'm Dave Trull with the Trull Gallery a custom furniture shop in St. Petersburg, Florida, and I'm going to talk to you about the different types of woodworking clamps. As you can see here I have several different clamps that I use on a regular basis. One of the more popular is the standard bar clamp, simple bar with a ratcheting head, and a screw mechanism to tighten the stock down. These come in different sizes, shapes, and lengths. This is a different style of bar clamp, it's called a parallel head clamp. Because these two faces stay parallel at all times. It's good for gluing up objects, and preventing them from racking while they are being clamped. Another clamp that a lot of people are familiar with are what's called quick grip clamps. The head slides easily on the bar, and then when you go to clamp something in you just squeeze this handle, and it locks it up. And to release there is another handle here that just breaks the seal. What you will find with this style clamp is that you won't get the same kind of pressure as you will with the standard bar clamp. Other clamps that a lot of people are familiar with is a C clamp. C body with a threaded arm. Again you get a lot of pressure with this it's the threads that give you the extra pressure. And again they come in different sizes. You can find them as small as one inch up to eight inches, and probably larger if you do some digging. Pretty common tool you can use these all the time. Another clamp that I use quite frequently is the spring clamp. And it's based on the same theory as a clothespin, but it's a lot sturdier. There is a large spring in the middle, and you can just squeeze them open, put your piece in there, and lock them shut. Again not a lot of pressure, but they are great for a lot of little things, and holding things in place while you make a different set up and things of that nature. Another clamp that a lot of people are familiar with is a pipe clamp. Usually available in two different sizes based on the size of the pipe. This is a three quarter inch pipe clamp, they also come in half inch. You can have clamps as long as you can have pipes. They are threaded on one end, free sliding on the other, again a ratcheting jaw holds it in place. And the sturdy thread on the other end to tighten things up. The nice thing about these is you can have a couple of clamp parts, the heads, and several different pipe lengths, and you can change the length of your clamp simply by sliding the heads off. I have pipes as short as two feet, as long as eight feet. And the nice thing is with a simple pipe coupler I can just keep extending and extending. I could easily make my two eight foot clamps into one sixteen foot clamp if I ever needed anything that large. So they are very inexpensive, very powerful, and very, it's a clamp that you can use for a lot of different items. Another clamp that I use quite frequently is called a parallel jaw clamp. And they are not as popular as they use to be. If you look in your grandfather's garage you will probably find them, because they were great clamps back in the day. And they still are, but they can be a little finicky. But it's a simple double twist mechanism, the jaws can stay parallel, or if you are doing odd shaped work you can use one side, and bring in one of the jaws at an angle. Again really simple to operate once you are use to them, they have been around for years and years and years. The older ones actually have wooden threads, and they are still working great today. I'm Trull with the Trull Gallery, the fine art of furniture making."