New quick grip clamps, quality decline
Ronaway
| Posted in Power Tools and Machinery on
I have used quick grip clamps for quite some time in my shop, in fact the ones I have are quite old and used. I recently purchased some of the new blue Irwin quick grip clamps to replace some of my old ones that had seen better days. The new clamps do not seem to be of the same quality as the old clamps. One did not work right out of the package and the others don’t seem to have the same strength as the old clamps. I was just curious to see if others had this same experience with the new clamps.
Ron
Edited 2/3/2006 12:03 pm ET by Ronaway
Replies
I bought four , returned them following day. I have six of the 6" light duty clamps and two of the heavy duty 12" clamps,the older black ones.They work fine, I assumed,incorrectly,the new clamps were the same quality.I might try the Penn State clamps, adjustable with one hand similar to the quickgrip.
mike
Personally, I have never been a big fan of the Quick-Grip clamps. Granted, they have a few uses around the shop, but I have always found them to be........ flimsy (for lack of a better word).
However, I recieved a couple of the new Jorgenson "ISD" type bar/spreader clamps from a friend and have been very impressed. These things are awsome! They are a little bulkier than the Quick-Grips, but with that comes incredible strength. The grips are very comfortable and the release mechanism is very well thought out and minimizes accidental release. About the only thing I don't like about these is that they are made in Taiwan. It was a little disappointing to see that another American company had gone overseas for some of it's production.....
Two pennies worth...
Dave
I agree with your findings --returned mine too
I too found the new blue ones to be of poor quality. The jaws aren't parallel.
I got them at a pretty good price and figured they were probably unloading
seconds. From what I've read here I quess they're all crummy now.
As an asside, I got a bunch of Rockler Pipe Clamps and am very pleased with
them .
I use a lot of the 6"-12" quick grips. The new blue ones are definately inferior. I returned a couple of 12" and have a couple of 6" that are pretty pathetic. Never had a problem with my old black ones.
Alan & Lynette Mikkelsen, Mountain View Farm, est. 1934, Gardens & Fine Woodworking, St. Ignatius, MT
Had the same problem. My older ones work great for me, over 12 years. I picked up 4 newer blue ones and one does not tighten. Also the newer ones are made in China. Probably a quality control issue.
This forum post is now archived. Commenting has been disabled