"Clamp extender" sounds like a prank item the new guy gets sent for...like a sky hook, board extender or a bucket of elbow grease. And, Matthias just made one. This shows that his skill is on another level.
after all these years that I've watched your videos, you still come up with ideas that make me think how come nobody thought of that before. amazing mind!
There are already videos who have made clamp extenders. However this one is a bit more practical and ingenuous. I should have seen this before I made a pair myself. Having this in stock is really more practical for me than having very long clamps that would just sit there except on very rare occasions that I use them.
Dry joints are never a good thing. So better off too much than too little. Plus wood glue is relatively cheap. A gallon of Titebond 2 is $25 and a gallon of glue is a lot. You can glue stuff like a madman and it should last you the better part of a year.
@@larrybud this can be counteracted a lot by pre-taping around the joints and wiping with a wet towel. Takes a little patience to tape but takes all the elbow work out of glue removal and allows for a lot of excess of glue. Also straws!!!!!!
@@tannermaddox3685 Or one could learn the appropriate amount of glue to put on a joint and get the best of both worlds! There's an argument (and I've seen it) that wiping glue with a towel only "embeds" the glue into the grain of the wood.
Hey Matthias, I bought BigPrint the other day to print out a map for my D&D game (first game I DM'd in person) and I just wanted to say thanks! Saved me a lot of trouble and money trying to send it to fedex or ups or some other print shop.
Alternately: Replacing the rivet at the end of the bar with two holes for 1/4-20 machine screws, permits you to bolt two bars together and remove the foot as needed allowing for the same flexibility.
This is a good alternative, but the tradeoff is now you have half as many clamps! Certainly easier to drill and tap a couple holes than make those relatively complicated extensions though.
Quite true, there's always a price to be paid.. I also have a variety of inexpensive gluing clamps that use an aluminium extrusion with "press punched teeth" for the ratchet mechanism. With a simple piece of hardwood sized to fit inside the extrusion and holes appropriately drilled, I can gang them together in a similar way. Fewer clamps true, but that hasn't been a problem so far.
Great idea! I’ve actually tried making my own bar and fixed jaw using steel flatbar (the moving jaw head from this type of clamp will often work on 3/16x3/4” flatbar) but I quickly found that those clamps don’t have a simple mild steel bar - it’s something stronger. Mild steel of the same size just bends.
Cosmas bauer built some bar clamps, but he used some pretty big steel. I guess that solved that problem, but he said they were really heavy. I have often thought about making bar clamps, but haven't come up with a design that is worth making yet.
I personally rarely use that style of clamp, especially not the longer ones like that. I prefer the 3/4” pipe clamps and I thread both ends of the pipe regardless how long the pipes themselves are. Then if I ever need a longer pipe I just screw on a nipple for 3/4” pipe and screw in a extra lengths of 3/4 pipe in the other end of the nipple to make the pipe clamp any length that I need. I have many pipes 3’, 6, 9’ and a few 12’ and if I need anything longer I can just add another section of pipe to whatever size pipe clamp I’m using. With extra 3’ sections of pipe I can make my pipe clamps pretty much any length I need and there still plenty strong with the two pipes screwed into the nipples! Been doing it this way for decades and hasn’t failed yet! Although if I was to use the same clamps your using, that’s not a bad idea by any means either! Certainly one I never thought of trying! Can’t argue with something that actually works!
I just realized why I keep coming back to Matthias after all theses years. Every single youtuber after having years of experience, have used their income to buy newer gadgets and bigger shops and all this stuff seems so innaccessible to me, a guy who barely ever does projects... but when I do... I need a reference for how I work within the means I have Matthias is that reference.
Love the idea! 1:25 if you drill a round hole, that would create a less weak weak spot and at the same time you could just route the slot for the shaft instead of cutting away all that material and you need no bandsaw.
Outstanding! I'm making some drawers for my workbench and ran into the same problem. I have two clamps made of steel pipe with the ends you buy. Each one weighs about 3 pounds and is a real pain. Once again Matthias's genious comes through! 👍👍👍👍
Anyone else feel that Mr. Wandel is like the MacGyver of woodworking? These clamp extenders are a good exampe of that. Thank you for a nice video, sir.
I ran into the same problem and bought a set of pipe clamps, plus extra pipes in various sizes. Plus I also use ratchet-style cargo web straps on occasion, loop them around and hook them to themselves.
Another great idea from Matthias, of course! and another lesson is obtaining sufficient "Squeeze out" of the glue. ya think!? Well better than being not enough and dry! Thanks for the tip and another enjoyable tutorial and learning curve even at 79 I still seek knowledge and get it with Matthias. thank you so much. ECF
I stopped by to Home Depot after work this evening and bought longer pipes for my pipe clamps. Then I came home and found this video in my feed. 😅 Your way is much more awesome (and much less expensive!). Very cool.
I have definitely run into this issue before which forced me to go out and buy crazy long pipe clamps. Another simple and elegant solution from Matthias
I learned you can buy shorter sticks of pipe and use pipe couplers to extend pipe clamps, makes them way less annoying to store because you can take the extensions off.
I had wondered why you hadn’t designed your own clamps like John. I do like the idea behind this. I have no doubt that these can handle considerable clamping force as well, certainly more than adequate for woodworking. Thanks for sharing this idea.
I am very impressed over and over how well your brain works to solve problems, and your solutions are rather simple. Thank you for sharing your knowledge with us.
I got and order for a 5 ft long bench and I honestly didn’t have enough money to buy long enough clamps. I’m so glad I saw this video before I started making it
Nice solution! Another solution is pipe clamps. Just get whatever lenth you need and buy a central heater piping or somesuch, put the pipe clamps on and you're good to go. Got them from aliexpress, it did take 3 months to arrive though. Got some 3mx23mm pipes cut them in half and made two clamps out of them. You can reverse them so that they push apart instead of push inward.
This is brilliant idea. I was struggling with short clamps for a while, ended up 3D printing some sash clamps. When I'm watching this video I'm wondering, how this did not come to my mind? Thanks for sharing.
I some something recently on a Russian creators page. It was similiar to this but had several holes drilled through it - going down the length of the wood, say 8 holes. The 12" clamp would pop in any one of these holes to suit the approx. size it needed to be for clamping the project, if it was big or small.
