# Clamp Cart



## Leo G (Oct 16, 2006)

Figured why waste a Sunday. My Wife and son went out of state to do a bowling tournament so I went out to build myself a clamp cart. I have about 40 pipe clamps, 28 of which are 36" or shorter. These are the clamps I use most, usually for clamping cabinets, FF's to cabinets or panels. I have a tool cart that holds 9 clamps, enough for simple clamping but not for most things. I am always walking back and forth collecting my clamps from their normal resting place over in the corner by the garage door. Here is my plan for the cart:










I changed the corner pcs to 2" for the outside pc and 4" for the diagonal, it is shown as 2" for both. My clamps are 1/2" Pony's, the 3/4" circle and 1 1/2" squares represent the clamps. The hole drilled is 1"










Took me longer to make it than I anticipated. The top and bottom clamp holder/support needed 56 1" holes drilled. I figured I could make a short cut by screwing both together and drill the holes for both at the same time. For some reason the meeting area between the two pieces was getting chips forced into it and spreading the pcs apart. I put a few more screws in but it still happened causing blowout. So I ended up only drilling halfway through the top board, enough to put a center point from the spade bit into the second board. Took them apart and drilled from both sides on bot board. So instead of drilling 56 holes I ended up drilling about 224 holes. The rest went smooth But making the straight cut outs to the edge from the holes took a lot of time.

Here is the finished project taken with my phone camera (ugh)


----------



## smokey1945 (Feb 20, 2009)

Nice!!!
Thanks for the post:smile:


----------



## AZ Termite (Dec 20, 2008)

Great job on the clamp cart. I need something like that.


----------



## Gerry KIERNAN (Apr 20, 2007)

Very nicely done Leo. That is a great looking clamp cart.

Gerry


----------



## johnv51 (Oct 27, 2008)

That's great! I did a scaled down version of Norm's clamp cart a few years back thinking I had all the clamps I would ever need. Yeah I know. "What was I thinkin!!??" I got the plans and will make a full sized one. I have a small clamping cart too but need to figure out a better way to store the small bar clamps than just pile em on the bottom shelf.


----------



## Gary Beasley (Jan 21, 2009)

I hear you about the drilling. Next time use a forstner instead of a spade bit. Spades are for shoveling dirt ;-)
Nice looking cart, I'll have to consider one for my shop when I finally get the kids stored furniture out of it.


----------



## Leo G (Oct 16, 2006)

For this cart the spade bit was the correct choice. A Forster bit has a terrible time going through the back of sheet goods. But in this case it didn't really matter because I ended up going through both sides anyway. I use the ones with the little tips on the OD so they do a good job of coming through the bottoms if you are using a drill press as I was.


----------



## Gary Beasley (Jan 21, 2009)

Really? I've never noticed that aspect of forstners, they always cut pretty clean on every thing I've used them on. What does it do, tear out at the bottom of the hole? Just on ply or in general?


----------



## Leo G (Oct 16, 2006)

It is a great cutter, as long as you aren't drilling through holes. All the ones I have are steel so no carbide with the extended tips. If I need a super clean through hole I will set it up so the point just comes through and then flip the pc. This was just exterior B-C plywood I got at the orange borg. Not going to waste my nice forstners on it.


----------



## jharris (Jan 8, 2011)

I love my forstner bits but when I drill through-holes using the drill press I clamp a sacrificial piece of plywood to the table before drilling.

This supports the bottom of the cut and prevents tear-out.

Jeff


----------



## Cedar fly (Feb 14, 2011)

I like the grooves to keep the bottoms from swinging. Very efficient storage. Nice build


----------



## burkhome (Sep 5, 2010)

If you can ship it with floor space...I'll take one.


----------



## tcleve4911 (Dec 16, 2006)

Thanks, Leo

I'm on it:thumbsup:


----------

