Bar Clamps Build Process

21/5/2021

This is the photo I didn't take yesterday: the handles epoxied into place with the masking tape removed. One or two had a little bit of leftover squeezed-out epoxy that I'd missed, but it wasn't very much and was easy enough to dig out.

This is all the pieces fully welded, painted and glued and ready for assembly onto the bars.

After putting everything together, I found that two of the screw jaw mechanisms were very stiff. I presume this is down to one of the following:

1. Too much paint inside the jaw (where it slides on the bar).
2. Mis-positioning of the back face of the screw jaw so it doesn't line up with the nut on the end plate when the end plate is tightened onto the bar.
3. I might have tightened the split nut too much before welding it in place.

I'll do some investigation another day; for now I'm happy that eight jaws are working fine (my target was always to make eight jaws; I made ten in case something went wrong with one or two of them).

Once everything was together, I took 16 of the wooden jaws and chamfered the four edges that would be on the outside (this was just done with a hand sanding pad).

For each jaw in turn I then put some hot melt glue on the jaw and pressed the wooden jaw pad firmly into place. Once both jaws for a given bar were on, I slid the sliding jaw up to the screw jaw and tightened the screw jaw such that it was squeezing the two pads together (and hence against their jaws).

After all the jaws were glued on, I loosened everything back off again ready for oiling with Danish Oil. I'm not completely convinced the hot melt glue is a good option for this (although it'll make it easy to replace the jaws if required), but if the jaws fall off I can always try a different type of glue.

This photo shows some of the jaw pads after having the first coat of Danish Oil.

This shows some of the handles after having the first coat of Danish Oil.

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