HOLD DOWN CLAMPS

After buying a pair of hold down clamps for my drill press table, I found them to be a valuable tool. When I made my workbench, I copied the design to make a set, for clamping projects on the workbench.

To give a surface that won’t mar the other woods, I glued leather, from an old belt, onto the clamps.

I have a pattern that I keep for drawing out knobs, since I make so many of them for a lot of my tools in the shop. Cutting them out on the scroll saw doesn’t take long.

The oscillating drum sander is handy for cleaning up the shape.

Then a roundover bit is used to smooth the edges.

In case you notice from the final pictures, I had a short 1 1/4" dowel for a spacer on these knobs. Later on I decided to cut the dowels off. I did this so that the clamps would have the maximum length available with the t-bolts.

I made my own t-tracks using ¾” plywood. I used a ½” router bit to make a slot for the head of the t-bolt.

When gluing the top sections on, I used a 9/32” drill bit as a spacer.

Be careful not to have glue ooze into the slot. Slide a t-bolt down the slot immediately after clamping the boards together, to clean out any glue that may have oozed into the slot.

I made two of these t-tracks to span the width of my workbench. They clamp down in the middle, with the aluminum track that I had installed in the bench.

You may need to place a spacer under the clamp, depending on the thickness of wood you are working with, as shown by the dark brown board in this picture.

#HoldDownClamps #TTrackClamps