Sash clamps from library furniture

[Philip Davies]

I thought that you might like to see some clamps I made from salvaged library furniture.
The bars are the upstands, with slots for the shelving brackets, originally T-shaped, so I removed one leg, and cut down the other to make an L-shape. This is mild steel box section, the walls too thin to support a thread. So what I did, after drill a hole to tap, was to insert a dowel, and pour in molten lead. Have you ever tried to tap lead? It’s a b————r! (This is a technical term meaning it’s difficult)

Here you can see that the thread goes through the leg( an arm now). The head is a block of maple, to which are fixed two screws to run in a slot cut in the bar. The thread has a split pin through it ,with washers each side, running in a slot in the side of the head. The tommy bars are just mild steel bolts, salvaged from somewhere, the nuts are also epoxied on to the threaded rod.



Here is the foot, which is the steel shelving bracket, which has three lugs, sandwiched between two pieces of maple.



I made 8. They have had a lot of use.