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This is my first time attempting to post photos so please excuse the mess I know I'm about to make.
I've been trying to recycle other people's tools (translation: buy as much as I can at garage sales) and recently stumbled on a collection of bar clamps by the Wetzler Clamp Company in 6, 12 and 18" sizes. They're clearly an older style, but very solidly built with comparatively massive bars. They came in a carrying case that was built by the original owner.
My shop is our 2 car garage, but most of the wall space and some of the interior space is spoken for so everything has to sit in the middle. We live in earthquake country so I try to design stuff knowing the earth is going to move. My longer, less expensive clamps (red and orange) are hung from a beam that holds the garage door track and is designed so that the clamps cannot easily fall off in an earthquate but are easy enough to grab without using a ladder.
After looking at what others had done, I decided to use a pair of 2x4s with dados in them mounted on stretchers, and then the whole thing mounted 20 degrees off vertical (that's what the beveled 2x4 is all about) on another beam so as to keep the ends of the clamps above head height but within reach. This provided the perfect opportunity to use a new Freud 8" dado set I'd purchased cheap from someone who ended up with two.
I'm not as happy with this setup because it isn't as secure as the other one, and clamps may well fly everywhere when the next big one comes, but at least they're off the floor
I've been trying to recycle other people's tools (translation: buy as much as I can at garage sales) and recently stumbled on a collection of bar clamps by the Wetzler Clamp Company in 6, 12 and 18" sizes. They're clearly an older style, but very solidly built with comparatively massive bars. They came in a carrying case that was built by the original owner.
My shop is our 2 car garage, but most of the wall space and some of the interior space is spoken for so everything has to sit in the middle. We live in earthquake country so I try to design stuff knowing the earth is going to move. My longer, less expensive clamps (red and orange) are hung from a beam that holds the garage door track and is designed so that the clamps cannot easily fall off in an earthquate but are easy enough to grab without using a ladder.
After looking at what others had done, I decided to use a pair of 2x4s with dados in them mounted on stretchers, and then the whole thing mounted 20 degrees off vertical (that's what the beveled 2x4 is all about) on another beam so as to keep the ends of the clamps above head height but within reach. This provided the perfect opportunity to use a new Freud 8" dado set I'd purchased cheap from someone who ended up with two.
I'm not as happy with this setup because it isn't as secure as the other one, and clamps may well fly everywhere when the next big one comes, but at least they're off the floor
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