Quick, Cheap and Quality Parallel Clamps

A woodworker can never have too many clamps and when you are a newbie you would be sadly lacking in that department. Especially if it's a hobby and you don't want to spend to much.

So what do you do when you need parallel clamps for gluing up and don't have any clamps available? You improvise! I always keep my eyes open when I see carpenters working to see the tricks they use. This is one trick that I am really grateful I saw!

You can use the materials you already have and make any amount of parallel clamps for a fraction of the cost or even virtually free

It is easily made from scrap material and you can be adjustable for varying widths of material to be glued.

For each clamp you would need -

• 1 beam
• 2 small blocks
• 2 screws

Place the boards that are going to be glued up together. Place the wooden beam across it and mark the width.

Now place small blocks under the beam. The blocks should be placed a little away from the required width for glue up. Drill pilot holes and then drive the screws through the beams and into the blocks.

The distance between the blocks should be the width planks to be glued up plus about 1/4″.

Make as many wood parallel clamps as necessary.

Glue the edges to be clamped.

Now join the glued edges and make sure to place a piece of plastic or wax paper on top. Remember, your clamps are wood too! You do not want to glue your clamps to your project!

Place your clamps on top of the work piece. Again do not forget the plastic sheet to be placed between the clamps and work piece.

Now simply tap the blocks to create an evenly distributed pressure along the glue joint.

The tightened parallel clamps will give and even clamping pressure and will produce a nice, tight joint.

Here is the other side still in the clamp. I can't imagine anything easier than this! As my kids say ' Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezy!'

Hope this helps you in your projects ! I found it very helpful as it also helps me to clamp up wood while I used my kreg jig.

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