Official Luthiers Forum!

My son and I just spent and week with Kevin Gallagher building two guitars.

Our lives are ruined forever. We have the BUILD FEVER.

So..... where do we buy cam clamps and not have to spend a fortune for them?

I've seen them ranging from $8.95 to $14.95. I didn't think they were going to be that much.

Did I hear that OLF sometimes does bulk purchases on these?

I'm starting from scratch so I need almost everything for a kit build.

Thanks

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P A U L B U R N E R
Burner Guitars

Since you just getting started and there is no rush on gettting guitars out the door. build your own cam clamp ther are lots of plans available but in truth having one in hand is as good as a set of plans. it will likely cost you around $4.00 a clap if you build in a batch of 10 or more. Great wood working experiance and a no worry project.

I don't even have the tools necessary to build the clamps yet (unless chewing gum, duct tape, baling wire and a 9-volt battery will work) - LOL

I can see I have just opened Pandora's Box!

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P A U L B U R N E R
Burner Guitars

Oh, if you only knew! I know my first cost me waaay more than if I would have just bought a good guitar to start with. But, then, I wouldn't know what I know now, that I can actually build one.

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Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

Prepare to say these two statements many, many, many times in the near future. Really. I'm not joking.

Bill, who STILL doesn't own cam clamps (but would LOVE to...)

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Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.

I often joke and tell people I could have bought a Ryan, Traugott, and a Somogyi and still saved myself a tone of money.

On the cam clamps... the grizzly clamps are crap -- don't be tempted by the low price. Klemessa's are nice but expensive, I have a whole mess of the stew mac clamps. It is a one time investment... bite the bullet.

There will be lots of "one time" investments as you tool up.

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Brock Poling
Columbus, Ohio
http://www.polingguitars.com

the same as stew mac sells, but direct.
http://usaclamp.com/

I built a couple, they work ok. My recommendation is if you don't have the proper tools buy them. It doesn't cost much if you're only buying a few; I would build a go bar deck for clamping braces.

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Jeremy Douglas

I highly recommend Klemmsia clamps. I wouldn't bother making them or getting any others. I also recommend making yourself a go bar deck. I never use that many cam clamps at once. I only have about a dozen of them. I know everyone says you can never have too many clamps, but, in my mind, more than I need is too many. I don't have nearly as many clamps as a lot of people, and I still have too many of some kinds. I could use a few more quick grip clamps in different sizes and a couple more spring clamps. Generally, I find that just a few of several kinds of clamps in various sizes is all I need.

Good luck!

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Todd Rose
Ithaca, NY

https://www.dreamingrosesecobnb.com/todds-art-music

https://www.facebook.com/ToddRoseGuitars/

I built my first handful of acoustics with 6 cam clamps, 18 spool clamps plus a few miscellaneous clamps I had in the garage. Were I starting to build guitars today, those spool clamps would be replaced with a go-bar deck.

Every now and again when I place an order with Stewmac I'll add a half dozen cam clamps if I feel I'm not getting good enough value out of the shipping cost. Stewmac's mini camp clamps are great too and I'd recommend keeping at least a dozen of them on hand in any collection in addition to .

I say you can never have too many but I normally have a handful of builds on the go at once. I have about 30 now and tend to run out once a fortnight or so. I'm sure if I had a hundred I'd still run out... clamps are one tool where every time you add a new one to the collection, you wonder how you managed with one less in the past.

As far as making them yourself goes...great if you've got the tools and spare time needed. I'm happy to pay for a top notch product that'll last a lifetime of building and spend my time in the shop building guitars.

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Richard
http://www.guitarmaker.com

I don't have a Shopsmith but when I was searching for cam clamps I did come across this plan: http://www.woodshoptips.com/tips/050304/index.htm

There's a downloadable PDF on that page as well.

-Jim

P.S. I really enjoyed your thread over at AGF

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-Jim Wick

This set of plans is ok for the most part but there is an issue at the bar and upper jaw. On the upper jaw at the slide bar there is no brass or steel pins for the bar to wedge against when tension is applied. Cam clamps work by wedging the slide bar between two offset and apposing surfaces located in the pocket of the movable jaw. This means per this plan the bar is wedging against inside upper and outside lower wood of the slide bar pocket. I would assume that these clamps would wear fast and eventually not have enough cam left to impart the required friction betwen the bar and the two surfaces to maintain its grip. However it would be easy enough to adapt these plans to add the locking pins to the upper jaw slide bar pocket.

Ok - sounds like a gobar deck and rods may be the way to go - but I've never used these.

These look like they might create a problem of "pushing" things out of alignment while gluing since the tension is not straight down.

How do you prevent this?

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P A U L B U R N E R
Burner Guitars

I reccomend buying the things; they're not THAT expensive, and you don't need that many. Go-bar deck for braces and gluing top to back, between 4 and 6 cam clamps for blocks, fingerboard, general clamping, and you're set. Buy more as you need/want more; I have 13, I build between 2 and 6 guitars at a time (very slowly, but still), and I rarely ever use them all at the same time - really only when I'm gluing electric guitar tops to solidbody blanks and want as many clamps as I can get my fingers on. Never on acoustics.

As for go-bars, tension is almost entirely straight down; you want 1" to 1.5" of bend in the rods, not more, but even then, the force vector is largely downwards. Just do a few dry runs, and you'll see it's not that difficult to get things lined up and working properly.

Without going too much into the mechanic of column loading; If both contact points are in plane with each other then all the force received by the clamped object is a compression load. You don't need an excessive amount of deflection in the rod to achieve the max load on the column. All that extra deflection is potential energy being stored as potential spring reflex but is not exerting significant additional compressive loading or clamping pressure. Some where around 1/2" of deflection in a 3/16” dia x 24” long fiberglass rod is more than enough. All the extra deflection is just adding to the possibility of a spring reflex failure. 8lbs of clamping is pretty much all the clamping pressure ever needed. I can achieve that with a 24" long 3/16" dia. fiberglass rod clamped between two apposing surfaces at 23 5/8" apart. Assuming the contact points are pretty much planer. That is just 3/8" deflection to achieve more than 8lbs of compressive load.

I guess I should have said that these results are not based on the calculations but rather per my calibrated scale. We have had this discussion many times and the archive is full of the calculations that bare this out. I don’t consider 1" of deflection to be extreme but in my line of thought why add more possible spring back potential than necessary

Not a problem at all. You'll see.

Actually, many clamps, including cam clamps, have a tendency to pull things to out of alignment when tightening them. It can be tricky to avoid this, but it's not an issue with go bars as long as you place them reasonably straight up and down.

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Todd Rose
Ithaca, NY

https://www.dreamingrosesecobnb.com/todds-art-music

https://www.facebook.com/ToddRoseGuitars/