Improving budget aluminum bar clamps for woodworking 

Have owned these for a while and never thought of this. Thanks so much

Hey Hate, I watched your video multiple times and followed your instructions to the letter. I just completed putting in some pine inserts into (2) 60" clamps I purchased at Harbor Freight yesterday. YOUR CUTTING DIMENSIONS WORKED PERFECTLY! THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR POSTING THE VIDEO! John

great idea Paul Sellers, thanks

Excellent demo with no fak... show off. Good info with simplicity. We need more people to follow his way of demos

Thank you, I brought 2 of these from Silverline and instantly trimmed and inserted wood inside them, I also added 4 rubber pads to each clamp end. Thank you, works a treat 👍

Just tried your method for upgrading these clamps and it's the better way to do it. Table saw, calipers, and I also used my dado blades to cut the groove. Fit perfectly on a few 48" bar clamps. Thanks for the awesome video.

It would have been nice if you have Paul Sellers a bit of credit.

It took me a while to figure out why I was having trouble with these. They looked like an upgrade over my cheap F-style clamps, but I kept getting worse results and I finally just went back to the F-style clamps once I realized that these were twisting and bending. I'm going to pull them back out and give this a try. Thanks.

You did a nice job of building on Paul Sellers’ ideas.

Might be the difference in what you used to take your measurements vs what I'm using (Machinist's rules) or (given the quality) the tolerances of HF clamps, but I had to make fairly significant adjustments to your cut measurements. Took a lot of time fine-tuning everything, but overall I'm very happy with the increased rigidity in my clamps. I only purchased the clamps after viewing several modification videos such as yours.

Great idea. I was about to walk over to HF and pick up a half dozen clamps. This will help.

This was first done by Paul Sellars. His video is also very good. You had a nice video also.

Nicely done! A drop of LocTite on the setscrew is helpful as is a touch of dry lube on the jaw socket for the tightening screw.

Awesome...will be doing this soon! The twisting when tightening ticks me off!

Excellent !! I am going to do this with some 36 inch clamps. Thanks for the tip !

Wow, very helpful and informative thank you.

Great idea, I've already bent all mine

Thank you! I have just purchased 3 of these today!

Nicely done.

I bought 4 of these clamps, 2 24" and 2 36". I've used all of them a few times now and found they work well and had zero need for any reinforcement. Sure, it doesn't hurt to stuff some wood in there, but I don't see the need or the need for any modifications at all. The value on these clamps is very high considering the low price.

I have several clamps they aren't harbor freight but they look pretty similar to those. I did the same and used some wood to make mine a little more rigid. I also found that drilling a small hole near the end about a 1/2-3/4 inch up from the black end cap and adding little through bolt in the hole to lock everything together which seemed to help even more with the flexing. With the improvements they are okay clamps but definitely still have limitations. Ok for light duty clamping but I wouldn't recommend using them on say a larger glue up.

Gasket cork also works for the pads.

I am happy about this idea because I just bought some of these clamps at HF. Also, I love how your table saw is the Kobalt job site saw. I have one of these that I use on the jobsite (in addition to my woodworking I am a licensed contractor) and I love it! It seems so flimsy but actually as long as you get the fence lined up properly, it does a great job. My woodworking cab saw is a 3 hp Grizzly, and I'm not sure which saw is more fun to use!

awesome!! thanks for this.

Great idea! Thanks.

Love it!!

Smart design!

Great video!! Thanks

Great ideas!

Great idea!

Thats pretty legit man. Nice video!!!

Great ideas.

Cool! Thanks

Very nice

Good video

Thanks for sharing this video. I have several of these clamps and plan to do this upgrade. Can you share where you got the rubber padding material please? I can’t seem to find it anywhere. Thanks in advance.

Any thoughts on improving the tightening handle? Removing the acorn nut capped handle and making something else?

Love the video. Short and to the point. But I thought Teflon can stain wood????

Cool!

Brush-on contact cement does the same without polluting the air... I used thick leather rather than rubber; to each his own. Remove the handle nuts and clean with alcohol. Use red thread-locker and you're done. Overall, good video.

Which table saw are you using please?

I have these for years and use them as well Rockler's and did not have to make any "improvements. The only thing that I would consider is to elevate them and make them more stable which is the advantage the Rockler clamps have at 3 times the price.

how much if I return my pieces ... I need 10 sets

Sir, gd mrning, sir matanong magkano?

Great video Nate. And I'm really happy I found your channel, 1 new subscriber immediately. I've just received a set of 6 aluminium clamps, similar to these ones, but I've found an issue, which I wanted to ask if its a common problem with these types of clamp. At the 'threaded' end of my clamp, it actually has 2 rivets (as opposed to a single one like yours) however, this really restricts how much movement can happen on the thread. It's actually 12mm of movement on mine. My 'clamp catches' are every 25mm. As a result, I've discovered that some lengths of wood just can not be clamped. I think (if my maths is right) there would be a lot of 3mm 'blind spots' (thats prob not the right term) where the clamp can not clamp. If that makes sense to you (or anyone) is it just the nature of budget sash clamps?

Nice! But perhaps better to start the video explaining why you think they need an upgrade in the first place? I guess without the wooden core, the clamps are not very solid or perhaps even flexible? Thanks!

What about just replacing the bar with box steel

I just now watched this, and I have a question. Do you have any issues with the indents on the bar? I have seen other reviews that state that these deform over time.

Is there a reason you didn't take the tags off?

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Not bad. The newer clamps are better, they have a hard rubberized plastic pads

Great video and incredibly helpful, but title should be "if you made the mistake of buying these clamps, here's how to salvage them". Speaking from personal experience, out of the box they are little more than toys and after the time, money and effort needed to make them usable, you would have been better off buying quality ones ("buy once, cry once").