Common Woodworking Clamps

Choosing the right clamp for what you're doing is just like every other tool in your shop. You've got this array of stuff, and you gotta pick the right stuff for the task at hand. And that applies to clamps too. These are just another tool. So what I'm gonna do here is go through an array, a wide array of clamp styles and functionality, and show you the best choice of tasks for each of the clamps that we look at.

Part of the reason I'm doing this whole video is, I have frequently seen people try to do edge to edge glue ups like this, and close that with clamps like this. We're gonna talk about F-style clamps. These are not your huckleberry for this. What you want are parallel jaw clamps like this, just what the name says. These jaws stay parallel, so when I close that, it's gonna help keep that panel nice and flat.

Anytime you're doing an edge to edge type glue up like this, this is the style of clamp we want. They are of course, available in different sizes, different scales, so you can match the length, the scale of the clamp to what you're doing. But remember, it's all about parallel jaws. Face-to-face glue up. What we wanna be able to do is get some pressure on this.

For that, I love these F-style clamps. Good little reminder there. Face to face, F-style clamps. We can get good pressure out of these, thanks to those nice threads. Good, big handles to grab onto.

And generally, on these face-to-face glue ups, we need a little bit more oomph to pull that closed, make sure we have continuous contact all the way down. So we can do that with this style we have here. You need a little bit more reach. You can get an F-style clamp that are deeper throated, deeper reach that'll let you get closer to the center. If you're putting a veneer onto a backer, you might need something that's got a little more stretch, so you can get over the center of that board.

Good application for these F-styles. Often get into applications in woodworking and just DIY projects where we wanna hold with one hand, clamp with one hand. Trigger clamps like this work great for that. We can vary the size, get different clamps, depending on the scale of what it is that you're trying to make happen here. That's one way to do that.

Lovely little click clamp. Watch this. That's what puts tension on. Another great way to be able to control your work while you're tightening the clamp. And then another thing that's really cool to know about, 3/4 inch holes in your bench, and you can vary that hole size if you get the right shaft to match it.

Boom, boom, boom, in order to tighten that in place, or remember our clicky thing? In order to put tension on that. So a great way to make convenience come to your workshop, one-handed applications that help you secure stuff. If you're bringing miters together, like that, if we squeeze this with an F-style or a trigger clamp or a parallel jaw and do this, those parts climb out, those parts climb out. What we really want is equal pressure from all sides at one time.

Band clamp is the perfect candidate for anything like this where we wanna squeeze from every direction uniformly, all at the same time. When you're bringing cabinets together, like this, we want that face frame seam to close, we want this to be flush. So, could we put an F clamp on here? Could we do a trigger clamp? Sure.

However, better tool for the job, face frame clamp will close this, like that, and then when I tighten this, draw them flush. So this is a great example of in our clamp world, picking the best tool for what we're doing, because this gives us that seam closure and flush across the front, all with one tool. Gluing on edge banding. This is cool. Grab your F clamp.

Grab your edge band. Then, clamps for gluing on edge banding. Easy-peasy. Application like this where I need to clamp that in there so I can glue it in place, it kinda looks like we want an F-style for that, but the handle's not gonna work in that application. So, when the handle is offset like this, I can get in there, close, tighten, and make that work.

Another alternative to that kinda thing is in this case, I can deflect the handle. So that can help you get into tight quarters as well, and give you a little bit more oomph when you're tightening that down. So like I mentioned earlier, I've seen a lot of people use a lot of clamps for stuff they're not really designed to be used for. And if you want your glue ups to come out right, if you want your projects to come out right, a lot of that's gonna come down to making sure you're choosing the right clamp for the application.