Wooden Cam Type Clamps

This mornings project: In my ever ongoing quest to find new work holding options, I found some Youtube videos that show wooden cam clamps but there wasn’t a design file easily available. So I decided to copy the idea but design my own from scratch. And of course share the design file here for anyone who wants them or wants to modify to your own purposes.

The holes are .257" in diameter which provides a good fit for the 1/4"-20 bolts I use in my threaded inserts (but you could also use 1/4" dowels as well). My wasteboard has inserts in a 2" grid pattern, so I put enough holes in the clamps to avoid any dead space where they might not reach. Made in White Oak which should be suitably strong. The finish isn’t very good because I had to stop and restart the project after adjusting work holding, resulting in a slightly different zero in the middle of things.

Link to the Fusion 360 project for a quick view and the ability to download:
http://a360.co/2tUSZrY

The .STL for those who don’t use Fusion (but this is the first time I’ve exported as an .STL, so not sure if that works well for importing):
Cam Clamps v3.stl (999.1 KB)

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Thank you Evan, It’s nice to see an stl since I don’t use Fusion, feels like I’m included too. Happy Day, Jude
Pulled them into sketchup, a few extra voids, but wholly workable, nice and thanks.

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Great, I’m glad it worked. Fusion gives a few options when exporting as an .STL, so I wasn’t sure if I had chosen the correct options to make it transfer well to other programs. Alternatively, if you click the http: link above, you can view the model in a live environment (Fusion not required) and then choose your download format, including .STL.

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Fusion… live environment…are you tempting me to enter the C L O U D ??? Oh no, oh no not me… I will not enter the Cloud…at least not without a co-pilot… right Jerry? ha ha thanks again Evan

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Ha, @grumpa Jude it is very hard for me to get my .stl files small enough to upload here.
But I made this very rare model of a grasshopper, all by my self :slight_smile:
It’s small enough to upload here.
I named it Jude.

Jude’s Grasshopper.stl (2.9 MB)

It’s a little triangulated. I had to save with a .0008" tolerance, so not bad.


I took a dead grasshopper, off the car’s grill, and took the legs off, then took pics of each of the parts, then remodeled the pieces.
I have all the pieces saved as seperate clip art, so I can rearrange, or use legs, or heads on different bodies.

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Thank you, very much for the clamp files @EvanDay .
I’ve been really wanting this!

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That’s quite an “honor”??? At least it didn’t appear from a Cloud… But that really is an accomplishment, I am impressed, great work. I’ll see what I can return the favor with. Maybe for my single action rubber band revolver… I could call it the “Arkansaw Kid”…I seem to remember you saying that’s where you are. Thanks for the “name-innation”. That is cool to name something you worked on for someone else, quite a gesture and much appreciated. Jude

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Thanks, and you’re welcome.
It took me all day, but I learned so much, and now that I’m learning Sculptris, and ZBrush, I can make .stl models all day long :slight_smile:
Grass hoppers are a rare find, the only one I could find was over $30, so I decided to make one to share.

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So much better than those “russian” ones, but they did have an elephant sitting on a rock like “the thinker”, do grasshoppers think?..more ideas than I can contain…Oh…I got tons of grasshoppers in the yard… Jude

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Here it is ready to cut in Estlcam, I’m not understanding enough about this process to try it yet, but the grasshopper is.


Nice work Jerry.

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While that looks nothing like even old David Carridine, I like it! My appologies I just could not pass up the Young Grasshopper!

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How did I forget Master? No apologies needed, gotta love memories, if only I could forget some of mine. I do believe that youth is wasted on the young, we do appreciate those times, somehow…

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Well I hope they work for you. They probably could use some improvements, but at least there is a baseline to go off of. I made two pieces of wood to serve as straight edges that would line up at 90 deg and would bolt to the pattern in my wasteboard, as a supplement to these clamps. Now i’m finding that if I use my X and Y axis travel to make those edges no kidding straight (by jogging the machine manually while running in only the X or Y axis and taking a thin cut off the edges), that they don’t meet perfectly at 90 deg. Maybe like 89.5. So I’m rechecking the square-ness of my machine. As far as the machine knows, it’s X-axis is perpendicular to the Y-axis, but that’s not how they come out in reality. Mildly annoying.

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Those look interesting. Can you please show how these work. Ty

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Check out this video. It’s simple yet effective. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJO4K-UTgo0

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Here is some pictures of them in action.

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I’m still laughing about this, brightens up a dreary day. Thanks again Jerry

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I made a similar torsion clamp system designed and made by Marius Hornberger.
It uses the “dog hole” features and requires 3/4" or 19mm pipe to be cut and used for locating & stabilizing the clamp components. Marius is a little sarcastic, but very German, good entertainment and educational, so edutainment?
Tem

These videos:


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I created a slightly modified version of Marius’ parts that is based very closely on the DXF file he provides a link to.
I created my parts using fusion 360. I can provide them if interested.

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I, for one, would appreciate your F 360 file. And, thanks for offering!

If you mill a large variety of materials, shapes etc you cannot have too many work holding options!