Over the passed few years I’ve acquired 48 C-clamps ranging from 4″-12″. Also, watching Home Depot a few years ago clear out all their Bessy line at 60% off, and recently, Lowes cleared out their Jet line of F-clamps at 75% off, I’ve acquired over 50 F-clamps ranging from 3″ to 5″ jaws as well as those F-clamps that have dual feet on one end… The lengths range from 8″ to 36″ and there are usually at least 4 of each size.
Now, I have some time to organize these clamps, but sure need some storage concept ideas over and above a rolling cart.
Can you help me with your ideas and pictures?
Thanks, Bill
Edited 2/15/2007 12:33 am ET by BilljustBill
Replies
If you have walls with bare studs, get some conduit and conduit clamps, cut some pieces to whatever length will make for efficient use of space and hang them on the conduit. My shop is in my garage and I put the pipe over a window, near the top of the wall. I open the clamp enough to go past the pipe and just hang them. C clamps can be hung the same way- if you want to keep them in a different place, fine but it's a very cheap and easy way to store them. If you're in a basement, clamp the pipe to the floor joists and hang the C clamps over the area of your bench where you're likely to need them most frequently. Longer clamps would go along a wall but can be hung the same way.
Bill: I did the same thing as Highfigh with conduit. I spaced mine off a wall with wooden blocks. That was good for c-clamps. For pipe and bar clamps, I fastened a 2x4 with 1-inch spacers behind it to a wall. The flat faces of these clamps rest on the flat wood surface with friction & gravity doing the work of keeping them there. A big advantage of both these methods is that storing & removing them is so simple & quick.
Cadiddlehopper
As I have a small shop and a rolling assembly table, I have all of my clamps laid across the open frame underneath the assembly table. The frame is made up of the cross pieces that make up the undercarriage of the rolling table and I purposely used 7 cross pieces spaced 8in apart to form 2 open-frame shelves that allow the heads and tails to hang through for all sizes, as well as provide a place for C, Spring, and wooden adjustable clamps to hang. What's keeping me from hanging them on a wall is that I don't have but maybe 25 clamps all together so they all fit under the table, and while the assembly table is all over the place, wherever space will allow, the clamps are always right where I need them when I'm putting together the pieces.As I collect a few more clamps though I'm thinking of adding a swing out plywood rack that would hold clamps on both faces yet roll up against floor to ceiling cabinets when closing up the shop. The racks would be hinged on one side to the outside corner of the cabinets and swing out on casters attached to the rack's outside edge to be opened. I don't want it to be a free rolling rack as I need to save the floor space that outspread, stabilizing feet would take up. Or, I just might go buy some conduit, it works pretty well too.
KWL
Rolling carts take up floor space. What I did a few weeks ago for c-clamp and f-clamp storage is buy some 3/8" iron pipe, 12" long, some closet flanges for the 3/8" pipe and pipe caps. Screw the closet flanges onto your wall, thread the pipe into the flanges and put the caps on. The 12" long pipe will hold nearly a dozen clamps each and takes up very little wall space and much, much less than carts.
I haven't tried any larger diameter pipe yet, but I suppose it would work well for Besseys and other parallel jaw clamps. When I need some more space, I suppose I'll try it then!
In case you don't know: pipe and conduit sizes are the same outside. Heavy-wall conduit should have pipe threads on the end and, of course, it is stromger than thin-walled conduit.The kind of racks that HighFigh and I use could be mounted on a movable platform as well as a stationary item. Whichever you want depends on how you want to do your projects or your shop layout. I did not lay out my own shop. The layout is somewhat confining, but it is more or less fixed. A movable assembly table sounds great, but it probably won't help me.Cadiddlehopper
I just ran a length of pipe overhead by hanging it from the peforated metal strapping screwed into the overhead joists. I put C clamps over the pipe and just run the screw up enough to make an opening too small for them to slip off. I also hang Jorgense-seyle wooden handscrew clamps from the pipe by pushing them up to the screw and tightening the upper hadle until the can't fall off. There is no need for real force.
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