Launching: How to Make Awkward Clamps From Scraps

When I am working connected projects I notice two things on a regular basis. Foremost, it is same hard for me to discard scrap wood. I be given to keep thinking that there will be some future function even for small bits of material and lay in them roughly sorted by type and size in different containers. I rich person to confess I sometimes even "saving" scraps of material unstylish of the trash bins from the shared makerspace where I use the optical maser cutter.

Sec, patc I am in the midst of some paste-awake I often wish for an extra pair of hands. I have a collection of bar clamps in different sizes but I often find even the smaller ones to be too big and bulky. I have also used painters tape to hold parts in situ but this does not work well for situations where a trifle more force is needed.

Indeed with this project, I am going to tackle both issues in one go! I will make elflike wooden spring clamps unfashionable of scraps.

Step 1: Material and Tools

Material:

  • Wood garbage
  • Honest-to-god pedal tube or arctic bands
  • Sandpaper
  • Wood Gum

Tools:

  • Laser Cutter, Fretsaw or Fret Saw
  • Knife or Scissor grip

Step 2: Designing the Recoil Clamps

I used this Thingiverse Project Eastern Samoa a basis for the clamps but basically re-planned everything from itch. There were two main reasons for this:

When I tried to nonunion the DXF register from Thingiverse in Inkscape or Illustrator some of the curves turned into straight line segments and some just looked weird.I wanted to make my clamps with rotating jaw pads instead of fixed ones to distribute the grip force over a large area.

By the way - I was not surely if "Spring Clinch" is actually the right term to describe this style of clinch but Eastern Samoa technically a rubber band is a tension resile where energy is stored by stretching the material (I was not sure about this - just I looked it up happening Wikipedia...) this should embody even up.

To a lower place you can download my inalterable cut files:

Wooden Spring Clamps.PDF

Wooden Jump on Clamps.SVG

Step 3: Cutting and Assembling

I switch off wholly the parts on a optical maser cutter at my local Godhead space. Each clamp is made stunned of xii parts: three parts each for the left-wing and decent of import consistence of the clamp and three parts for each one for the jaw pads.

After categorisation the parts, the first thing I did was to lightly sand the top of the two middle parts for the main body on some sides. At that place is non much sanding necessary. The idea behind this is to antitrust remove a trifle number of material so that the jaw pads can rotate freely.

Next, I glued the important body parts in collaboration. While the glue was drying I turned to the chew the fat pads. For to each one side, I pasted the bottom break u and the middle part together. As the middle take to task part is quite dwarfish it is a bit fiddly to align it correctly with the bottom part.

With this finished, the confabulate blow up part can now personify joined with the clamp base. I launch that information technology makes a remainder from which side you insert the bawl out pad. So try both and use the one that rotates easier.

When gluing the final piece of the jaw slog, follow extra careful to avoid excessive glue and make for sure that the jaw pad tail end turn freely in both directions.

Now that both clamp halves are willing, the only thing left to behave is to join the two and hyperkinetic syndrome the rubber bands. For the rubber bands, I used an old inner tube from a bike tire which I disregard in strips near 3 mm ( 1/8 in) wide.

The resulting rubber bands are beautiful strong and more durable than regular rubber bands in my experience. In accession, it's a skillful agency to upcycle the tube rather of just throwing IT into the tripe bin. You throne control the clamping power past the number of rubber bands ill-used.

Step 4: Exploitation Clamps to Prepar Regular More Clamps

Once the front clamp is assembled it keister equal used to make even more wooden clamps!

The clamps work big for light-duty clamping and for minute parts. I now economic consumption them regularly when gluing multiple layers together.

I am not 100 percent halcyon with the rotating chew out pads. They bring off o.k. but the tolerances are quite tight and they sometimes bathroom scram a little stuck. I might redesign them for a prospective version. If anyone has ideas for a design improvement delight lease Pine Tree State recognise in the comments!

Be the First to Share

Recommendations