Slight Upgrade for My Shop Built Bar Clamp

A few years ago I built a bunch of bar clamps for my shop. The original post can be seen here [link] While they work adequately and I use them, I’ve always been a little dissatisfied with the movable stop (second picture above.) When edge gluing, they tend to force the wood up off the bar of the clamp. Also setting up for the glue up is a bit time consuming with having to unscrew the eye bolt and find the right hole and such.

So Today my old clamps got noticed again, so I decided there’s no better time to make a small upgrade and post it. Below is the result.

The new movable stop is cut from 3/4 in. stock which matches the thickness of the bar. The metal arms are some 1/2 inch strap stock that I had. The screws are stove bolts which I cut to length after putting the nut on, then I mashed up the nut to keep it from loosening and falling off. If I were making the whole clamp from scratch I would not have to drill the holes in the bar, but I did use them to mark where I put the notches in the bottom. The notches, I made by sawing a shallow kerf at the desired location, then I used an aggressive rat-tail rasp to make the half round notches. Now I can easily adjust the movable stop. The stubby dowel at the end of the bar keeps the stop from sliding completely off the end. I just need to upgrade the remaining 11 clamps!

-- Ni faru ion el ligno!