Long clamps

[mklotz]

...Lots of possiblities once some smart person like yourself points out the blindingly obvious!

I've found a workable, at least for me, way to stimulate the "blindingly obvious" breakthroughs in my designs.

After I've designed the device in my head, I consider each part separately, asking "what is the essence of this part". For example, the essence of the clamp body is "a long thing with regularly spaced holes". Once the essence is established I try to think of available objects that already satisfy that essence. If something occurs to me I consider if it could replace the object in my mental design that stimulated the search. Many times this leads to alterations in the design but that's all right as long as the final design is simpler or cheaper.

I was led to this approach the first time I saw a old steam engine with a completely skeletonized connecting rod between the eccentric and the valve. It was probably designed so for weight reduction but looking so unconventional led me to speculate if such a complex thing would work in that application. Then it occurred to me that the connecting rod was just a structure to hold two holes a fixed distance apart. Any old piece of metal would work.

I realized then that if I thought of the connecting rod as a hole separator then I would be free to use almost anything in any shape for its design. Generalizing that insight led me to the design approach I mentioned above.