Clamps. They are essential. I need more. But what happens is that they pile up, unorganized, in a heap. Or they dangle precariously from a dowel rod clumsily hung between a couple joists, only to fall down during a thunderstorm, ruining your beautiful bench top surface.
My solution: disposable one-time-use clamps. Landfill what?
Naw. The solution is organization in the way of a clamp rack. Rockler and other companies sell effective clamp organization systems, which I encourage you to consider (just make sure you wear eye protection). However, I wanted a modular clamp organization system that can scale out as I get more clamps. After a couple of iterations, I settled on single units that can be ganged together.
Here is the prototype, which looking back, I should have had 2 screw holes on each “anchor tab.” It ends up being okay, but I think I will adjust when I print more. I will also counter-sink the screw holes.
I counted up my clamps that conform to the “F-style” shape and after three days of 3D printing, I had 24 units. 3D printing is slow.
BTW, for the printers out there, the material is TPLA and I increased the gyroid infill to 30%. I had no problems with 65 mm/second. If you are interested in the STL, shoot me a message.
I have mounted 2 lines of French cleats on the shop wall for MAXIMUM customizability, so I mounted the clamp rack units in a line on 2 boards with a 45 ripped into the bottom. I used star bit screws thinking they would grip better.
Once mounted, I offset the bottom rack so that the tails of the clamps above fell between the units on the bottom. The French cleats are holding the weight marvelously. The row of 12 seems to be a nice number for the mounting board and I think I will follow that trend for the next batch.
Now, how to mount clamps on the ceiling?.. Magnets?
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