repurposed tool No. 2

[Clay Schaeffer]

Chuck's thread inspired me to post a tool I made from a broken clamp. It's made from one of those small cheap Chinese clamps you can get from HF or a discount outlet. Because the lever pivot points break on these things I put a screw through the body. This one then broke at the head. I sawed the bar off a little shorter, added some wood blocks and made a jack for aligning cracks and regluing braces. It can be operated and released with one hand, which is good because that's all we can fit through the soundhole.

[Chuck Tweedy]

That is Awesome!

[Steve Senseney]

I like Chuck's tool, but I like this also.

Being cheap, I bought a few of the HF chinese made clamps. They keep breaking the plastic and I just threw them away one by one as they broke.

The part that broke was the plastic lever that tightens it.

Can you explain how you repaired the plastic handle?

[Clay Schaeffer]

Hi Steve,
The lever pivots on a plastic "tit" on the inside of the housing. When over stressed (to get that last little bit of extra squeeze ) it breaks. The lever arm is fine, but it no longer has an anchor point to pivot on. I unscrew the housing, locate where the pivot point was and drill through both sides of the housing replacing it with a small machine screw and nut. After you break a few you get to where you can just eyeball the lever pivot position, align the lever and drill and bolt without taking things apart.
The clamps are marginally stronger after doing this, but really are not meant for heavy duty clamping - applying too much force will then snap the head off and you can turn them into crack jacks.

[Steve Senseney]

I threw out the broken clamps. I will have to break more!

[Jason Rodgers]

Do you top the metal shaft with a wood, cork, or otherwise padded cap? Or would that compress too much? This is a clever use of these crappy little clamps. I had one break and I sorta fixed it, exactly as you described. Still is useless: I'll keep it around to try this idea someday.

[Clay Schaeffer]

I didn't pad it but that might not be a bad idea. Just make sure the pad doesn't glue itself to the top or brace.