Facelift for a Kreg Right Angle Clamp.

Boys and Girls,

I was tossing up between posting a -1* review for these clamps, and negatives (<0) are not permitted,  or to regurgitate what I splurted at LJ on May 14, 2017… the link is here so I can reminisce about the past banter.

I decided that canning a product is nowhere as beneficial to those poor bunnies that already have one, and highlighting how I overcame that bad purchase decision can morph into a project of a potentially usable item.

For all you pocket hollers, keep the add ons loose, slip them off and you can partake in your kinky pocket billi.. holeing.

 

----------------------------------------- ooooOOOO From LJ OOOOooooo --------------------------------------------- 

 

For all you "pocket holers", here is a way I made "my useless” Kreg clamps usable.

 

Just a disclaimer, I only use pocket holes on melamine.

 

Looking at all the glossy pictures of pocket hole making, I thought that the Kreg 90° Clamp would be a great tool in my pocket holing arsenal.  In fact, I thought they were so great that after a bout of excessive vino partaking I must have stuttered and duplicated my mail order.  I eagerly awaited the package(s) and after receiving the first shipment could not move fast enough to try them out.

 

As I mentioned before, I only use pocket holes on melamine, and was eager to put my new clamps to use and overcome my past continual melamine misalignment issues.  I could never get an even edge when "pocketing" melamine.  I put the clamps to the test and this time I finally managed to achieve another perfect misalignment, as per usual.  Try as hard as I could using the clamps, the edges refused to perfectly align short of "tacking" the two boards together with 6" nails… and even then they probably would have slipped.  I latter found out that the only way to align melamine perfectly using pocket holes is not to use melamine.

 

Consequently I don't really need to elucidate my lack of eagerness waiting for the arrival of the duplicate order.

 

All was not lost as afterwards, every time I made a melamine box I chose to forget my past failures and tried the clamps again, only to toss them back into the corner accompanied by many a cuss words and tears for the wasted shekels.

 Unfortunately outside of pocket holes, there's not much use for these clamps, but not for lack of trying,

And maybe at a "pinch",

Then one day I had a bright idea 

and thought I could make fishing sinkers out of them but quickly realised they were not made of lead but steel so there was another impractical use for the clamps…. the list was growing.

 

While making one of the T & J models I put a 9mm ID cylinder on the pin end while waiting for the glue to dry and suddenly came up with a lightbulb moment.  After groping around and finally switching the lights on, I could see (finally) that maybe some wooden caps on the clamp could make them function as their name suggested… as clamps.

 

For the pin end I drilled a 11/32" hole down the centre of a ¾" dowel. 

If you haven't got a 11/32" drill bit, then go for a drive and buy one, as a 8.5mm is far too tight, a 9mm hole lets the cap fall off and roll under some inaccessible spot in the workshop... and most modern sale persons would not know what a "S" sized drill bit was let alone attempt to spell it other than with a “hit” suffix.  The 11/32" is tight and you have to force it on, as long as you used good ¾” hardwood dowel to prevent splitting, however, you will exercise your muscles and test your stamina if you ever try to take them off for use on pocket holes in the future… but NOT on melamine.

This ¾" dowel is then inserted into a 1" dowel with a ¾" circular mortice.

 

This cap, picture #2, should be sufficient as it perfectly compliments the swiveling clamp pad opposite the pin.  If you happen to be a wood lover and don't like to bruise the wood, you could drill a 1" round mortice into a 1 ¼" dowel and cap the pivoting head.

The parts you need for the upgrade,

and of course a naked clamp,

 

Followed by a bit of gluing, sanding and cutting (I'll let you sort out the order),

 

To prevent this cap from falling off and following the other piece in rolling under that same inaccessible machinery, I use a knob of blue-tac to hold it in place.

 

That way if it falls off, the entire clamp goes with it and when it hits the concrete floor the cap breaks in two just before one of the broken pieces rolls to that same random inaccessible spot.  However, this time it is broken so who gives a damn about a missing broken piece.

 

Please note that the sizes quoted may only be approximates as I translated them to imperial measurements using one of those fancy Internet language translators (posted at LJ long before AI and migrating here), because my camera will not take metric pictures.

 

Now modified, these may not be the most practical clamps, however, I can now REFUSE to use them rather than NOT BE ABLE to use them. 

 

I don't sleep any better, but I no longer have nightmares trying to invent some other convoluted impractical uses for them.

 

Again as always, if you think this article is a waste of your valuable time, I do recommend you don't bother to read it.

 

 

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