You can never have too many clamps!

One of my woodwork teachers said to me "you can never have enough clamps" and you know he's dead right, because no matter how many you have, sometimes there are never enough!

Four Bessey K Body Revo 1250 Clamps and two Uniclamp 60's hold four 3 x 37 inch boards in glue up

Over the last 60 years of woodworking I have used all manner of clamps and the Record cast iron sash clamps were a firm favourite as these were brilliant for holding windows, doors and tables securely in glue up.

Cast iron sash clamp

However these days with arthritis in my spine, I have to be very careful lifting awkward heavy weights, so when I came to upgrade my clamps I started looking for lighter alternatives..

An assortment of Bessey, Irwin, Axminster and Festool clamps

I recently invested in a superb set of Bessey Clamps which are made in Germany.The K Body Revo 1250, of which I have four, can exert 8000N of clamping force and having used these on various projects, I feel are nearly as good as the much heavier iron sash clamps and will give me everything I need for the foreseeable future. I also have two of the smaller Bessey Uniclamp 60's
which are also very good and of which I shall be buying more in due course.

Bessey Uniclamps and Irwin Quick Clamps hoslding four 48 x 3 inch boards in glue up

For small holding tasks the Irwin Quick Clamps are very handy as they can be set with one hand. I use them in the workshop all the time and the 12 inch medium hold clamps are my favourites. In the above photo I am using them to glue up some pallet boards together with the Bessey Uniclamps to prevent the boards twisting. I left these boards to set overnight and they were ready for planing the next day.

Festool and Axminster Rail clamps holding the guide rail and work piece in place for a precise diagonal cut with the TS55

I bought the Festool TS55 plunge and track saw because it was the lightest model I could find and I have been delighted with my purchase. The saw package came with two Festool FSZ120 120mm rail clamps and for use with the MFT table, I bought a further two of these from Axminster which look identical, but have a slightly larger 160mm capacity and the wooden handles are painted red.

Although designed to hold the guide rail securely in place, I find these clamps very useful for a number of jobs. They fit through the 20mm holes in the MFT and will securely hold boards and panels in place, ideal for sanding, routing and using a hand plane. The other day I set up a stop on the pillar drill to drill holes in tiny one centimetre wide strips of pine. The Festool FSZ120 were perfect for holding the stop and this made drilling the 12 strips and easy task. I wonder why it took me so long to buy these clamps as they are brilliant and useful for a number of applications including holding the TS55 guide rail secure!

So whilst I have a number of clamps from the tiny Festool FSZ120's to the mighty Bessey K Revo 1250's, I know that I will always need more. There are times when I use every clamp in the box and wish I had more. C'est la vie!