Bar Clamps Build Process

3/5/2021

I'm planning to make some bar clamps based on the design by Neil Paskin. I'm sure it would be more sensible to buy some, but I like the idea of having some robust clamps that all sit at the same level and rest comfortably on the bench. Buying a lot of long, fairly heavy-duty clamps would probably be expensive and unless I went with the T-bar type, they wouldn't have the flat surface on which to support workpieces. Even the relatively cheap options like sash clamps are likely to be £30 or more for a metre length clamp; by my calculations the set of clamps I'm going for should cost me about £12 each (ignoring time and argon). Also (and probably more importantly) it'll be a fun project as I enjoy TIG welding and haven't had many projects involving much of it recently.

Anyway, I thought there might be a bit of interest in the build process (and all the mistakes I make along the way!) so I thought I'd write up a build log.

Neil Paskin didn't provide any real details of the design, so I decided to start with a CAD model (there's an image of the latest version as of today above) and a quick prototype made much shorter than the final clamps will be:

While making the prototype, I found various issues with my original design (mostly designing to engineering tolerances rather than allowing for welding movement!), so I updated the CAD model to suit and the final clamps should look more like the image at the top.

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