What types of clamps should I have in my wood shop?
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Clamps are one of the few unpowered tools that you need lots of. You can really never have enough of them. In one of The New Yankee Workshop Norm Abram build a clamp cart. It looks like it holds most of his clamps.
Clamps give you the ability to have ‘extra hands’ without the challenges of finding or prying them away from their friends. Clamps have some advantages over human helpers, first they don’t complain or fuss, second they typically provide more compressive force than what humans can and they don’t jiggle the piece.
The list below is my recommendation of the type of clamps that a beginning woodworker should consider acquiring. Granted, you don’t have to go out and purchase all of them at once. Although, if your tool budget can handle it…
Shop around for your clamps, there are some good deals available on line as well as locally.
- A variety of ‘C’ clamps, skip on buying the small ones. The smallest I have is 4” and up.
- One pair QuickGrip style clamps similar to the Irwin Quick Grip clamp. These are so much better than the old style screw bar clamp.
- At least one pair of pipe clamps. The pipe can be any length you want it to be. I recommend starting out with 4’ pipes. After a while you can determine what other lengths you need.
- Vice Grip© “C” Clamps
- A pair of web or band clamps. They are constructed of a nylon mess straps with a ratcheting tightening device. They are great for clamping together odd sized and faced projects. Try using a pipe or bar clamp to hold together an octagonal picture frame!
- Corner clamps. They are great for holding together all sorts of 90 degree joints. I have used to hold picture frames together to cabinet carcasses.
- A collection of large spring clamps
woodworking clamps
woodworking shop clamps clamps
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