How To Use Wood Clamps

There are different types for different things. This is called pinch clamp, it's really quite hard to open it. It's good for holding little trim on the edge of a piece of wood, holding two small bits together.

Clamps are all really used just to hold things together until the glue sets, or sometimes to hold things in place while you work on them. So that's a pinch clamp. This is a G clamp, for obvious reasons.

An even bigger G Clamp. Some clamps have got quite a wide throat and some are quite narrow. These are called Klemmsia clamps.

They're like a camel clamp, the name before them. You turn that around and the piece of wood comes up, so like that. These are calendar screw clamps, and you can close up or open together.

You have the advantage that you can open from one end and pinch from another, or even the other way around. You can also use them as spreaders to pull things apart with. This is a quick clamp.

You just move that toggle there and you tighten like that. That can also be used as a spreader as well. You just take the end off and put it on the other end.

It will push things apart. This little small clamp is a fiddle clamp. You actually use that to hold the front and back boards of violins on when you glue them.

This next lot, these are all for, well, one more first. This is used to hold things down when you work on them. It's a hold down clamp.

If I wanted to hold that there, so now, it's pretty firmly fixed. So, undo it. These next ones are all for holding frames together when you're gluing them.

These are both bar clamps. One problem with clamping is, very often, the metal surfaces will damage the wooden things you're clamping. So you put little off cuts of wood in between, or rubber, or something else soft like that.

This one here, you just adjust the pin, slide it along, put it back through, then turn the screw to tighten it. This is basically the same with a T-bar instead of a long thin bar. It's much much heavier.

This one's a pipe clamp. You adjust that up and down on here, then tighten this end here, tighten it and loosen it for the final adjustment. A little overview of clamps. .