Photographs by the authorMy new set of homemade clamps have a reach of 16". Here one is applying enough pressure to keep the clamp from pivoting under its own cantilevered weight and resting on the edge of the plywood.
I made my first set of Brenne-style clamps in the late '70s and they've see a lot of action, but there are some jobs that are just beyond their reach.
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Great design! In particular, I love your adaptation to extend the reach of a ratchet clamp. I will certainly be using that idea in my next build.
Sweet! Nice, Chris. Now I just need a reason to use these.
Any plans from you guys??
Hi Jay,
There’s nothing critical about the clamps except for the location of the hole in the cam lever. If you make something that is close to what you see in the photographs, there’s not much that can go wrong.
Chris Farmer of Fairfax, Virginia, made nine long-reach clamps for building his 16′ Hammond Swampscott Dory from John Gardner’s The Dory book. “The long-reach clamps,” he writes, “were a revelation. I made nine of them.”
Here he’s using the clamps to hold risers in place, a job that ordinary clamps can’t do.
I made long reach clamps by cannibalizing the pair of opposite-thread screws from a hand screw (the kind the school shop provided when you were a youth). These give you a lot of versatility in exactly how you need the clamps to be configured.