What wood worker doesn’t need more clamps? Good parallel bar clamps can get expensive, but these DIY wood bar clamps were made with some leftover materials already in our garage shop and only took a few hours to make.

The bars can be any length you want to make them, and I’ve even seen versions which were built so they could be extended so they were easy to store but could accommodate essentially any length required. For these DIY wood bar clamps, they are both roughly 3 feet in length. They are constructed from a piece of old (maybe 10 years old) pine we had laying around, and then a piece of 3/4″ maple. Though any hardwood would work for the top half of these clamps. The pine, which winds up being the bottom piece is cut 2 1/4″ longer than the maple to leave room for the blocks used for holding the handle assembly.

We glued the pieces together, and once the glue dries we drilled 1″ deep by 1/2″ diameter holes every 1 1/2″ on center through the maple face. These holes allow you to position the stop block close to one side of your project piece. The other side of the project piece gets pushed up again at the stop block attached to the screw mechanism. The pictures down below show how one of the blocks has a nut inserted for the bolt to turn through, and how we also used plastic washers to help prevent the hole from getting worn out over time. The bolt used in the adjustable stop block should be at least 5″ long.

These DIY wood bar clamps make a good addition to any clamp collection. Plus they are a fun project that uses some of the scrap materials that may be laying around your shop as well!

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