Clamp Rack

[Jeffrey Schronce]

Anyone have a good, easy, cheap clamp rack plan that they can email me or is available online? Prefer mobile but I might consider wall space.
Thanks!

[jbalders]

Anyone have a good, easy, cheap clamp rack plan that they can email me or is available online? Prefer mobile but I might consider wall space.
Thanks!

Here's one I built for my lightweight clamps from some spare 3/4" pine I had sitting around. Inside dimensions are 24x32. Shelves are 10", 11" and 9" apart (top to bottom). I gang-cut the slots with my dado to keep them all the same. They're 1" apart (centers) and 1-1/4" deep. The rack is deep enough the clamps could face in but they're a little easier to remove and put back this way. The rack was built so each clamp would sit in two slots for stability, and then I got my 6" clamps.

If I had it to do over again, I probably would have made the grain on the shelves run front to back, instead of side-to-side. The teeth would be stronger that way. I haven't had any break off, but I can envision it way to easily. I should have gone with 1-1/4" centers, as the clamps are just a little too tight to each other.

It hangs on the wall with a shop-made 45° beveled hanger. There's a block across the bottom that holds it away from the wall the same distance as the hanger.

Jeff

[Pappy]

From Workbench (I think), lots of storage in a relatively small amount of wall space...

[LarryG]

Mine is about as simple as it gets.

My clamp racks consist of a 2x4 and a 1x4 that are screwed together in a "L" shape. The 1x4 sits vertically and is attached to the wall; the 2x4 lays horizontally and sticks out from the wall. Most of my F-body clamps are hung on the racks by lightly clamping them to the 2x4. Some clamps (Bessey K-Bodys, Jorgensen HD F-bodies) are heavy enough that they will just hang there, unclamped, with little danger of my accidentally knocking them off.

I built these racks as a temporary measure, but as such things usually go they are turning out to be not-so-temporary.

One happy discovery I made, after the fact, is that the few inches of space between the clamps' bars and the face of the wall makes a good place to store thin stuff like my carpenter's level and, since this picture was taken, some of my router jigs.

[Jeffrey Schronce]

From Workbench (I think), lots of storage in a relatively small amount of wall space...

I like this. I think I will make a spin off of these ie a little less complicated. Yours appears to be adjustable, on pegboard, etc. I think I will just make the general forms and place them on a board for mounting to studs on the wall. This is what I needed as it takes care of bar clamps and aluminum clamps, etc without having to clamp them down everytime I want to hang them. Yes, I am that lazy.
Now, my new KBodys that were delivered today . . . . I will build a special padded velvet box for them with a heat lamp (on timer) to keep them warm and snug. ;-) I mean I got a great deal on amazon, but they are $20 clamps. They need as much love as my first born.

[jhart]

I guess I need more clamps!!

[JR]

I currently have more clamps than clamp rack space, so I've been noodling this issue, too.

Pappy's and jbalder's designs have a common trait that I think is important. A clamp can be taken down with one hand. Larry's method, which is similar to my current one, demands "lighly clamping" to the rail.

The odds of that light clamp pressure being too much to remove with one hand is directly proportional to a ratio defined by the cost of the wood over the open time of the glue, multiplied by two if you have to hold something in the other hand.

JR

[LarryG]

multiplied by two if you have to hold something in the other hand.

Actually it's 2.5. The need to "clamp the clamp" is the one semi-serious drawback of my rack. Before starting a glue-up, I always pick out the clamps I need, roughly adjust them, and either stack them on one end of the assembly table or carefully hang them back on the rack.

On a moderately-related topic:

I've found that having my assembly table set up as a peninsula, with one side inaccessable, works better than one might think. I did it this way out of necessity (i.e., not enough room for access to all four sides while keeping the table as big as I wanted/needed it to be) but having that one end blind hasn't been anything like the hardship I expected. I particularly like having the clamps right there at that end, with no need to dedicate floor space to a rolling clamp cart.

Still, and although My Next Shop is only in the very early planning stages, I think the arrangement I'm going to use in it is a similar wall-mount rack with its bottom canted out about five degrees, which my tests have shown is enough to keep the clamps on a rack without having to tighten them down at all. I will then move my assembly table out about 18" ... just enough to provide a walk-thru between the table and the clamps, for those few times I really could use it.

[Tom Miller]

...although My Next Shop is only in the very early planning stages...

I can only dream about My Next Shop(tm); what I got is what I got, and every sq. in. counts. Even the clamps need to cozy up to save space, which is what prompted the clamp rack design below. The spacing is such that the bottom row just fits inbetween the bars from the top row of clamps.

The good thing about this design is that it does allow one-hand operation.

This rack is now at it's limit with CabinetMasters and K-bodies, the pipe clamps are stored in another rack, and the F-style on a third rack.

Regards,
Tom

[jbalders]

I was browsing through some old issues of ShopNotes tonight, and I ran across Issue 73, which had an adjustable wall-mounted clamp rack.

A picture can be seen here: http://www.shopnotes.com/main/sn73-toc.html

Materials:

• a piece of 1x4 (or 3/4" plywood, I guess) for the wall plate
• a T-Track
• a number of 3-1/4" x 1/4" toilet mounting bolts, nuts and washers
• a couple of 2x4's to cut the adjustable blocks
• some screws to mount the T-Track.

Exept for the T-Track, you probably have everything you need in the shop already. The T-Track was dadoed slightly into the wall plate and the remainder was dadoed into the adjustable blocks. You can also put dowels into the blocks at an angle in order to hang your spring clamps. The washers and nuts are counter-sunk, and the outer edges of the blocks are chamfered.

It looks like this would fit the one-hand removal requirement as well as being adjustable to nearly every clamp imaginable. It may not be the most efficient use of wall space, though.

Jeff

[tribalwind]

Mine is about as simple as it gets.

i gotcha beat by just a lil' bit i will post pic when i get home

mine is also a 2x4 on the wall,but i just cut stud pieces to fit between the existing 2x4 stud-framing(garage use to be an apartment) some are just friction fit with a hammer(lot of friction lol)
some were too loose so i brad nailed the heck outta them through the studs

i started off by lighting clampin on the rail but now i dont even bother,they stay on it just fine.. i also did a similar thing for my wood-screw clamps,but that got to be a pain and i dump them all in a blue recycle-bin(for now!)

[ddamoore]

Anyone have a good, easy, cheap clamp rack plan that they can email me or is available online? Prefer mobile but I might consider wall space.
Thanks!

Go to http://www.plansnow.com/freeclamping.html and enter your e-mail to join their members list and you will get access to several free plans including one on clamping/clamp storage, (including a mobile clamp rack).

Dennis

[Jeffrey Schronce]

Go to http://www.plansnow.com/freeclamping.html and enter your e-mail to join their members list and you will get access to several free plans including one on clamping/clamp storage, (including a mobile clamp rack).

Dennis

entered email and got a lot of free plans but no clamp rack. Could you please save the PDF to your desktop and email it to me? If not, no big deal. Worth signing up because it gave me a 20% off code and I was just about to buy a rocking horse plan.

[ddamoore]

entered email and got a lot of free plans but no clamp rack. Could you please save the PDF to your desktop and email it to me? If not, no big deal. Worth signing up because it gave me a 20% off code and I was just about to buy a rocking horse plan.

Sure. I don't think your e-mail is available under your profile, or at least I couldn't find it. Let me know I would be glad to send it to you.

The clamp storage is available at the free plans site, it is just labled under the Free Clamp & Glue Guide. http://www.workbenchplans.com/plansn...w-clamping.pdf

Open the file & scroll to page 6-9.

Dennis

[Jeffrey Schronce]

Killer! Thanks.