Welding Corner Clamp


Author: Dave
Date: 12.23.12 - 9:01am



This is a quick post on a slight modification to a welders corner clamp. The specific model shown is a Northern 4" capacity, but they are all pretty much the same.

So I bought this a few weeks ago after literally throwing my old corner clamps in the garbage in the middle of a welding project. Now granted, they were probably 3 dollars a piece and had a clamping screw under a 1/4" diameter. (Not welding clamps at all, so I was asking for problems from teh start) Anyway, so I bought this guy and figured that would be the end of my corner clamping problems for life.



I wasnt familiar with this style corner clamp, but thats how they all are made so I went with it. (Also in hindsight, I should have checked the dimensions more closely cause this thing is gigantic and heavy but thats another story)

So the problem with this style clamp is that there is nothing keeping the movable jaw from riding up vertically. This makes the clamp as shipped completely unusable for small angle iron which immediately wedges under it and rotates.

I turned the thought over a little bit in my mind and ended up coming up with a very simple solution that can be implemented in about 10 minutes.

The fix is already shown in the picture above. Just drill and tap a couple holes in the thick part of the casting on the fixed jaws. Then just bolt a piece of metal across the top. The movable jaws shape is perfect for this, and gives it support over a wide range of motion. The third hole you see is so I can put the bar at an angle to get more distance if need be. An extra bonus is that the cross piece also makes a nice handle for carrying. I didnt even have to shim the bar up any, the clearance was perfect as it was.

Another interesting thought i had about this mod is that you could weld a nut on the cross member just over the work piece and add a couple long screws with knurled grips so that you could clamp the work pieces down vertically as well if you wanted. That could come in pretty handy as it can be tricky to keep both pieces lined up while turning the main clamping screw.




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