drill clamp

Hi,

damn cold over the weekend, freezing north-easterly blasting into the workshop doors so I didn't fancy being out there much. I was poking around the worktop, cleaning up, and I found a bag with a couple of biggish bolts that I'd bought a few weeks back to attach a clamp to my drill stand. The drill's a big old American thing that I've had for a few years and some months ago I picked up a sliding clamp off a car-boot for a couple of quid.

It's been attached with M6 bolts since, but they're too small, bending the washers into the holes, plus it needed two spanners, one on the nut and the other on the bolt, to make any adjustments. I was looking for something with 'wing-nuts' to make adjustments quickly. The problems would be that wings on the bolt-head would foul any metal in the clamp, and there's a couple of strengtheners underneath (would webbing be a good word?). So I decided on the bolt-heads having a bit of flat on top that would foul against the clamp sides and the nuts would have a tube spacer above the washers.

I grabbed some 1" tube and found that the nuts just slipped inside, so I changed the design a little and came up with this...





the slots in the table were just a little out of line with the clamp so I ran the grinder down the inside of each for a minute to take a couple of millimetres off and clamped it all up.








Not much of a job really, but it got my brain working for a few minutes and it does what I wanted it to do!

Regards
Peter

A bit puzzled initially but got there in the end, am oi being tick? do yer lock it up from der bottom?
Lateral thinking? Inverted thinking? good stuff.

I use a quick release from a pushbike for the same thing.

Bodging is a great game.

Damn cold? eh? it was damn cold in february, this is quite warm. My last friday's coffee that I forgot to drink had not frozen solid.

Chunko'.

Chunko'.

Hi,

yes, lock from below. That's what the bit of rod that I drilled through the tube is for. The bolt-heads just wedge themselves against the clamp sides so don't neeed to be held at all.

I like the idea of a bike release but I didn't think of that at the time.

Regards
Peter

Not 'bodging' really. Ingenuity,

Bodging? an art in itself.
It has a bad name because of amateur bodgers, not experts.

My Grandpa defined it beautifully.
''the art of making something do something it was never designed to do simply elegantly and most important cheaply''.

A true artform, something the Brits excell at.
Will post a photo of my crap QR solution when I remember.

Chunko'.

If I can't be bothered to get the bolts I clamp mine with my welding grips.

Like it Peter, I'm away from my studio or I'd be in there looking to see how best I can adapt the wing-nut affair I currently use or following Chunko's idea Mr Rats might find the wheels of a couple of his many bikes might just fall off..

congratulations, guy.
i think you must feel cool when you keep your brain working, and finally conquer the problem.