More Big Lots bar clamps

[Rich P]

Was in the Milpitas CA store today and they had a good quantity of 24" and 40" Columbian bar clamps for $7 and $8 respectively. They were not as heavy duty as the Stanley ones they had a few weeks ago but seemed to be of equal quality. Never heard of the Columbian before. The label says made in Taiwan. Amazon seems to have something similar at this link.

Everybody has probably stocked up on the Stanley's but if you need more I think these are a least as good for most purposes. I picked up 4 40's and am quite pleased with the find.

[jussi]

Yah I saw those to. I *thought* it was made in the USA (Tennesse ?). Or maybe I'm mixing it up with the Stanleys. 40" for $8 seemed like a really good price to me, even if they may not be the best.

[Rich P]

The WMH Tool Group is in TN. Label says made in Taiwan to WMH (Columbian) specs.

[LarryG]

Lowe's used to carry the Columbian brand, but perhaps a year ago they disappeared and haven't come back.

I have one 6" Columbian, that someone gave me, on the rack with a flock of generally similar 6" Pittsburghs from HF. The Columbian is the better clamp ... a little more robust, and more nicely finished. Best of all, it has genuine ACME threads rather than the finer machine-screw threads the Pittburghs have.

My only concern for the 24" and 40" sizes would be the bar size. If it's the same as on the 6", the 24" should be fine but the 40" could be a little whippy.

[footprintsinconc]

larry,

i bought columbian brand from woodcraft about 1.5yrs ago. these are the exact same as the so called JET that were sold at rockler and now at wood craft. the handle, the bar, rubber pads, the same. at 36, the bar does get flimsy when you tighten it, i would agree at 40", it would be real flimsy. i would go with good pipe clamps instead from maybe rockler.

[poolhound]

I have some that I bought a few years back and they are yellow. They seem quite well made. I do have a couple of 36" and as others have said the get quite bendy. This was before I had my Besseys 4x40s and 4x50s. With these and some long pipe clams it handles most longer needs.

I could use some shorter deep throat versions so I will go and take a look.

[dlminehart]

A bit OT, but I strongly recommend avoiding the small Stanleys at Big Lots. I bought 4 of them for $8 each, and 3 of the 4 were unusable. The moveable portions wouldn't stay anchored; looked as if the slots were a little too large. I should have tested them as soon as I bought them, because Big Lots has a 30 day return policy. I was a couple days over that, and am stuck with $32 worth of heavy duty garbage. The bigger ones work OK, thankfully.

[billfrommich]

A bit OT, but I strongly recommend avoiding the small Stanleys at Big Lots. I bought 4 of them for $8 each, and 3 of the 4 were unusable. The moveable portions wouldn't stay anchored; looked as if the slots were a little too large. I should have tested them as soon as I bought them, because Big Lots has a 30 day return policy. I was a couple days over that, and am stuck with $32 worth of heavy duty garbage. The bigger ones work OK, thankfully.

It was suggested on some forum that if the Stanley clamps are slipping you can try reversing the metal clutch plates and/or roughening up the edges of the bars with sandpaper. I had about 1 out of 8 that slipped when I first tried them but I haven't tried either of the suggested remedies yet.

[poolhound]

I just picked up 4 x 12" ($6) and 4 x 24" ($7). they look pretty sturdy.

[dlminehart]

I couldn't see how to reverse the metal clutch plates without drilling or knocking out the pivot pin holding them in place. The plates looked identical and symmetrical to me, so I don't see what swapping or reversing them would do. Edge roughing would have to be pretty severe, more like cold chiseling than sandpapering.

I've emailed Stanley, and am awaiting a reply.

[billfrommich]

I couldn't see how to reverse the metal clutch plates without drilling or knocking out the pivot pin holding them in place. The plates looked identical and symmetrical to me, so I don't see what swapping or reversing them would do. Edge roughing would have to be pretty severe, more like cold chiseling than sandpapering.

I've emailed Stanley, and am awaiting a reply.

I took a closer look at (and included photos of) Stanley clamps of mine that don't slip vs. one that does. In the photo of a clamp that does not slip, you can see where the clutch plates "bit" evenly into the bar across the entire edge of the bar. Further tightening the clamp just causes the clutch plates to "bite" more deeply into the bar. In the photo of a clamp that slips, you can see where the clutch plates just bite on the outside edges of the edge of the bar, so that there is not much supporting metal backing up the "bites". Further tightening of the clamp seems to cause the clutch plates to shear off material from the ouside edges of the bar allowing the jaws to "slip". Close examination of the bar with the slipping seems to show that its edges are slightly concave, which explains why the clutches only bite into the bar at the outside edges. Taking the above into account, I can see where using a mill file in a "draw filing" manner might remove the concavity of the edges of the bar, allowing the clutch plates to bite into the bar evenly across the edge. Of course, this is a bit of work depending on how much metal you remove. And I suppose that if you remove to much metal you might alter clutch plate/bar assembly geometry to the point where the jaws might slip for some other reason. I have not tried this modification myself as I am curious to see what response if any you get from Stanley.

[dlminehart]

I'll check mine for the concavity issue. Looks, from your excellent photos, like that might be the problem. BTW, is the bar the same on both edges? Could you put a digital gauge to it and see how the dimension compare? Looks to me that the defective one has slimmer top and bottom "cross bars".

[tbarn]

I just saw that biglots had stanley 60" cabinet style clamps for $15. They did not look as nice as bessy or jorgenson but for $15 they were not bad. They had big handles made of plastic.

[billfrommich]

Also decently priced on Amazon

I went on Amazon to check out the clamps alluded to in tbarn's posting ( I haven't checked out my local Big Lots yet). Oddly enough, while the 24" variety are $33 each, the 36" variety are $35 each, and the 48" variety are $40 each, for some reason the 60" variety are only $27 each, and that includes free shipping. Not as nice a deal as the Big Lots deal, but might be of interest to those who can't find them at Big Lots.

[fbohner]

Was at the Fredericksburg, VA. Big Lots. They had Stanley 1/2 and 3/4 inch pipe clamps kits, no pipe just the clamp parts. 2 and 6 inch C clamps, what was left of the bar clamps and two sizes of wooden screw clamps, for $7 or $10.

got the last 4 of the 6 inch C clamps, there was about a dozen of the rest.

Fred B