June 28, 2023
Description
These are replacement faces for the Harbor Freight Quick Release Bar Clamps. These will not fit the ratcheting versions of the bar clamps, just the traditional steel style, and not the aluminum versions.
I have many of these bar clamps for gluing wood working projects, mostly 12", 18" and 24". The faces of these clamps are made of an extremely soft, almost rubberized plastic so as not to damage faces of the project being glued. I was in a hurry on a quick welding project and didn't want to take the time to go over to the garage and retrieve a proper welding clamp and decided to use one of my 12" bar clamps to hold some angle stock on the end of some square tubing. The clamp held the pieces in place for a 3 minute job, but I noticed when I removed the clamp, both plastic faces were destroyed from the heat that transferred over from the weld.
I'm in the process of trying to organize my tools at my new house and found my clamp with the melted faces. I normally store my bar clamps at the end of my workbench just loosely clamped to the the surface. I decided to make replacements faces for the damaged clamp and a few others who's faces are worn or warped from general use.
I printed these in PLA because it's what I have handy at the moment. I printed them solid with 100% infill and tested it while gluing my silverware drawer back together which recently disintegrated. It worked just as well as before with the original pads, but may be prone to slipping on harder woods with slick finishes. These should probably be printed in TPU for general purpose use, or anything less brittle than PLA. PETG might be a good choice...
UPDATE 02032022: I added a new face for the screw portion of these clamps that will install easier for those who may print these with rigid materials. If you're printing in TPU, use "Clamp_Face_Screw.stl", but if you're printing in PLA or ABS etc. use "Clamp_Face_Screw_Rigid_Materials.stl".
Printer:
CTC A-10S
Rafts:
No
Supports:
Yes
Resolution:
.2
Infill:
100%
Filament:
Generic PLAYellow
Notes:
Print as oriented in STL's. I print with supports to buildplate the piece that goes on the body of the clamp, however, if your printer does well with bridging, you shouldn't need supports at all.
I recommend printing one piece at a time and test fitting it to the clamp. I modeled these from measurements I took from the original parts and for interior dimensions, the clamp itself. The printer I printed these with is stupidly dimension-ally accurate and the parts fit the clamp quite snugly, requiring a bit of force. You may try scaling up by 1% at a time on either piece and test the fit.License:
Creative Commons — Attribution — Noncommercial — Share Alike
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faultedlogic
