Making a C-Clamp From a Railroad Spike

In this instructable im going to be showing you how I turned a High Carbon Railroad Spike into a functional C-Clamp. I really enjoy making things out of railroad spikes, and this was a challenging build. I also made a YouTube video showing the process that you can see here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvVU7Z24C-0

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Railroad Spike

Forge

Anvil

Tongs

Hammer

Drill

Tap

Lathe

Bar Stock

Im going to be using an induction forge to heat the railroad spike for this process. An induction forge uses electricity to heat metal and is really efficient for a small forging like this. You could definitely do this in a gas forge or coal forge as well. If you want to learn more about induction forges ive got a YouTube video about this one here:

HERE

To start, I heat the head of the spike and condense it down into a square to I can later forge it into the "pad" of the clamp. Using the edge of the anvil and precise hammer blows makes this material very uniform after only a few heats.

Once the head is formed into a square I also need to re-form the tip of the spike into a square that will eventually house the threads for the screw. This is a little harder to do than the head of the spike as the material is already tapered. Once this material has been upset I square it off and clean it up on the edges of the anvil.

I want the C-Clamp to have a sort of I-Beam like shape on the body. This will make it stronger and also give it a cool look. To do this im going to add a fuller to both sides of the material. The best way to do that is using my guillotine tool. This is essentially a guided ram that I hit with a hammer with different shapes on the end. This process takes a few heats but makes a really consistent result that looks great. I made this guillotine tool and have a video showing how on my YouTube as well:

Guillotine Tool Video

Now that the fuller is in, I can bend the clamp into the C shape. First I make sure its nice and straight then I put it in my post vise and bend it over. I make sure that I do this when the material is really hot, and take my time. If you try and bend something over thats not red hot it can tear and rip. Once I got the C shape I was looking for im able to move on to clean up the shape.

I cleaned up the top of the clamp with a file before making dead center with a ruler and scribe. After that I drilled it up in steps to 5/16", and then tapped it with a 3/8-16 tap.

I decided to make the screw out of 3/4" bar stock. I turned it down and then threaded it using a geometric die head. I made sure to get the diameter right on the money with a micrometer. A geometric die head is a way to thread on a lathe without using the carriage. Its great for longer threads like this. Once I had the threads working and checked them in the clamp I cleaned up the other end and cut it off using the parting tool.

After the screw was made I used the same 3/4" bar stock to make a pad that would act as the clamping surface.

I drilled a hole in the end of the screw and cut a piece of 1/4" rod to be the handle. To make the handle permanently captured in the screw I heated up both ends and smashed them over using the vise. This is a little tricky and requires a lot of clean up on the belt grinder to make it comfortable.

Through all that work the clamp got a little crooked so I heated up the ends and straightened it in the vise.

A wire wheel really brightens up the forged material and softens all the edges. It also softens up the threads and makes it function that much better in the clamp.

I added my signature "Z" stamp in the clamp to make it my own!

To protect the raw steel I finished it with Boiled Linseed oil. This brightens it up and will keep it from rusting.

After all that work, its done! This was such a fun challenge to use the existing railroad spike material mass to make such a functional thing. The induction forge really made this easier, because the heat is very isolated and you can keep from making mistakes by overheating material. Try it out!