When you want to clamp something, what do you want your clamp to do? Hold stuff together – with ease, with strength and without breaking (the clamp itself or the object being clamped). That would be my criteria, and I’m willing to bet other people have the same requirements.
Bessey’s K Body Clamps are designed to do all of that. The parallel jaws are large enough, and designed in such a way, that they distribute pressure evenly across a surface – no bowing, turning or lifting (in other words, no breaking the clamp itself or the object being clamped). The jaws are always at a 90 degree angle to the rail.
Those rails, in their turn, are engineered with a unique profile to minimize flexing or bending (again, with the no breaking), and are crafted in Bessey’s own steel mill. And speaking of steel, that’s also what the jaws are made out of. They’re covered in super-polyamid for a non-marring surface, but the steel makes them strong. (Kind of like the Man of Steel, one of the few superheroes without a movie out this summer, as far as I can tell.)
Bessey has also addressed the ease of use issue, with an ergonomically designed handle (you can hand tighten the clamps to 1,000 lbs. of pressure) and Acme oversized threads so that, even though you can tighten them by hand, it takes a minimal number of turns to get to the point where you’re satisfied with your clamping pressure.
The Bessey K Body Clamps sell for around $30 to $40. You can find out more at www.besseytools.com.
