POTD was prep work for more shop organization. In a previous post I showed a 4’ x 4’ x 2’ deep cabinet with a couple of banks of drawers for organizing “stuff” that had accumulated on a shelving unit. Everything got pulled off the 8’ x 6’ tall x 2’ deep shelves and a pair of 4’ x 4’ cabinets were set in place. I had a pile of C-clamps setting on one of the shelves. Had ¾” pipe clamps leaning up against one end of the shelves, a pile of hand screws on the floor and bar clamps attached on the opposite end of the shelves. I’ll detail it in another POTD post, I repurposed a couple of the shelving supports to make a mobile clamp rack. While hanging clamps, I noticed the clamp swivel was off a number of C-clamps and a bar clamp. Spent a few hours making up new faces.
My clamps have a couple of methods of retaining the swivel ends. Some are peened over on the end to retain them to the clamp screw ball. I have some higher-end clamps that use a retaining clip to secure the swivel. Went the later design for these repairs.
Started by chucking up some CRS which was faced, center drilled and drilled to depth. Then used the closed diameter ball-end mill to the clamp screw ball end to round the bottom of the hole and bore the diameter to size. NOTE: The cutting edge of the ball end mill needs to be on center to get a consistent diameter on the bored hole. Little bit of eyeballing the end mill to center as there’s a helix on the cutter.
Test fit the clamp screw in the bored hole, then used a Micro 100 carbide boring/grooving bit to cut the clip groove. I arbitrarily picked 90% of the clamp screw ball diameter for the depth of cut axially, and cut the groove 75% of the clip diameter. I used a piece of extension spring for the retaining clip.
I had started with an arbitrary depth of cut of 1 ½ diameters of the clamp ball which left too much material on the end of the swivel. So, faced the swivel until the groove was about 0.080” from the end. Didn’t show it in the photos, but used a boring bar to cut a chamfer on the swivel just short of the retaining clip groove. Then cut a taper on the outside of the swivel up to the clamp face and parted.
The retaining clips are a piece of extension spring. Slipped the loop over the clamp screw ball, set the new swivel in place and closed the clamp. Then pressed the clip in place with a small screwdriver and worked the clip into the groove around the perimeter. My arbitrary 90% groove depth worked fine, the swivels have about 0.060” off play.
Thanks for looking!
Bruce
