Small Parts Clamp
You can sharpen your woodworking skills with helpful tips and techniques from the editors of Woodsmith and ShopNotes magazines. Get a FREE tip sent to your email address each week! Go to WoodworkingTips.com and sign up today.
Here’s last week’s tip from ShopNotes online editor Phil Huber:
When gluing and clamping small parts together, it’s always a challenge to align large clamps to hold them in place as the glue dries. To make this job easier, I built the small parts clamp you see in the photo above.
The base is two pieces of ¾″ plywood glued together and trimmed to size. Two grooves in the base hold a pair of T-tracks, as shown in the drawing below.
Next, two pieces of hardwood serve as the stop block and clamping block. They are drilled to hold flange bolts and two sections of threaded rod, as the illustration shows below.
Place a T-nut in each hole at the back edge of the stop block, slide a threaded rod through the holes in both of the blocks, and then screw them into the T-nuts, like you see in the side view below right. A little epoxy at the end of the rod will keep it from turning. Next, slide the four flange bolts in the T-track, slip the blocks over the bolts and add the washers and wing nuts. Finally, add the washers and thread the knobs on the rod.
To use the clamp, loosen the wing nuts and place the parts to be clamped between the blocks. Position the front of the clamping block to extend slightly beyond the edge of the base so you can turn the knobs and secure the stop block in place. Finally, snug up the star knobs and tighten the wing nuts to lock the clamping block in place.
Good Woodworking,
Phil Huber
Online Editor, ShopNotes