DIY Cam Clamps

[raulblack]

My Steward Mac clamps are awesome, but they are a little big for some applications. They were made with 1" maple that's 10" long. They have great clamping pressure and are really well engineered. I set out to knock them off in a smaller version. I got all the materials at Lowes except for the roll pins. Lowes wanted 40 cents each for them, so I ordered 100 of them off of ebay instead for $9.99 including shipping.

My version of the clamps are made with 3/4" oak that's 7 7/8" long. I used steel bar stock from Lowes and made all cuts in the wood with a band saw, except I used a dado blade in a table saw to make the pocket for the cam. I got the cork on sale at Staples for $3.00 for four 6" sheets. These little suckers are great!

This is the top wood for the clamp. I used 1 1/2" wide oak. The Stew Mac equivalent is 1 5/8" wide, so it's a little sturdier.

OakStock.jpg (50.53 KiB) Viewed 1350 times

Here is a finished clamp. Note the roll pins do the actual work against the steel bar, and the cork keeps from marring the wood.

OakClamp.jpg (46.61 KiB) Viewed 1350 times

Here is a pick of my little clamp next to a larger Stewart Mac clamp.

MineVsStewMac.jpg (60.18 KiB) Viewed 1350 times

The following website has an excellent tutorial on building these type of clamps. I took some ideas from this site and others from looking at my Stewart Mac clamps.

http://combraystudio.blogspot.com/2011/ ... d-and.html

This was a really fun project and served as a nice introduction to woodworking for me prior to taking on the monumental task of trying to build a guitar. I gained some confidence here.

[Dave Bagwill]

I really like your idea, and thanks for the tip.