Arise Sir Tribe

Open almost any woodworking mag these days and you'll be inundated with useful 'tips', most of which will set you back an arm and leg and many of which are as much use as a chocolate bloody teapot!

The best one I've seen is definitely worthy of a swift mention here and can be wholly attributed to my friend Chris Tribe.

It concerns cramps and cramp heads.   For years, I've used bits of 6mm plywood with a slot cut out...

















…so that they hook over the bar.  Works quite well, but does have the slight problem of...

…cramp inversion.  Turn it upside down and they fall off, so either you need to fix them to the job (with masking tape) or fix them to the cramp heads (with yet more masking tape), both of which are a veritable pain in the backside.  In addition the cramp itself is prone to fall over, which is intensely bloody annoying so instead of paying a king's ransom to some nefarious tool company for supports, simply make...  

…your own.  Blocks of scrap wood with a slot milled down the middle.  How simple is that?…and you've still got some 'folding' left to spend down the pub in the evening.

To return to the cramp heads, here's the solution.  The 'fork' has now been cut off and some offcuts of nice thick leather glued to the face, but here's the cunning bit.  The reverse….

….side now sports an 8mm rare earth magnet, set in flush with the surface.

This means that your cramp heads stay in position...

…no matter which way the cramp is orientated.  Clever n'est pas?

 See Chris's full Utoob clip for more enlightenment.