New member needs foot operated clamp

**Cheryl** · Apr 30, 2018, 12:48 PM

Hi,
I am an occupational therapist working with children and the proud daughter of an awesome industrial arts teacher, Bill Walsh. I often have to jerryrig inventive solutions for students and young adults with disabilities so am looking for some creative solutions and inspiring ideas here at Homemade Tools. Right now I have student who only has use of one hand so want to make him a clamp he can operated with foot to hold paper for cutting, string for lacing, and other projects at school. If it works well enough he may be able to use it as a life long helping hand. Any ideas are welcome! I will share those I come up with and hope they help others.
Thanks,
Cheryl

**mklotz** · Apr 30, 2018, 01:13 PM

Originally Posted by Cheryl

Hi,
I am an occupational therapist working with children and the proud daughter of an awesome industrial arts teacher, Bill Walsh. I often have to jerryrig inventive solutions for students and young adults with disabilities so am looking for some creative solutions and inspiring ideas here at Homemade Tools. Right now I have student who only has use of one hand so want to make him a clamp he can operated with foot to hold paper for cutting, string for lacing, and other projects at school. If it works well enough he may be able to use it as a life long helping hand. Any ideas are welcome! I will share those I come up with and hope they help others.
Thanks,
Cheryl

A variation of the ancient drawknife bench...

https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&....0.0kO8ufHNp64

might work for some tasks. Its utility could be increased with a variety of interchangeable clamp jaws.

I also remember seeing an arrangement which included a hinged arm on the top of a table to which was attached a rope that passed through a hole in the table to a pedal underneath, said pedal being hinged to the table leg. Stepping on the pedal pulled the arm down to clamp a workpiece.

**thehomeengineer** · May 1, 2018, 07:07 AM

Hi Cheryl
Just a couple of questions. Does the clamp have to be a permanent fixture/item, fitted to a desk or bench? Alternatively, is it to be transportable, as in needs to move to classroom-to-classroom? Is the tool to be operated standing or sitting or both?
I helped an apprentice to come up with a design to help our workshop assistant to use a bench vice who also only had one arm. This was also foot operated. The vice had a quick release mechanism built into it, which he could operate one handed. Most bench vices of this type have a lot of backlash in the leadscrew. Therefore, the idea was to use this backlash in conjunction with a foot pedal. A Bowden cable is, attached to the back of the loose jaw, and the cable fed under the bench to the foot pedal via a pulley system.
To load the vice you firstly need to get the vice jaws as close as possible to the width of the work piece to-be held (rule measurement). The work piece can then be place between the jaws and the foot pedal pressed, which then takes up the backlash in the screw to create a clamping force on the work piece. This then allows the hand holding the work piece, to-be freed up, by maintaining the foot pressure. This allows the vice to-be tightened in the traditional way by the freed hand while maintaining foot pressure. I hope this makes sense.
I am based in Berkshire in the UK if you are close and need help building such an item please send me an email via HMT and we can see what we can make for the young man/woman.
The Home Engineer

**mklotz** · May 1, 2018, 08:42 AM

There's also a wide variety of commercial hold down clamps...

https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&....0.CPVOTuFF3z4

that could be secured, either directly to the tabletop or to a board which is then clamped to the table top.