DIY Handscrew Clamp

Handscrew clamps are very useful in woodworking. They serve as a temporary vise to hold your workpiece securely while working on it. They are non-marring; can clamp odd-shaped pieces; and can have a larger reach than your typical F-style clamp. Because the jaws are made from wood you won’t damage your cutting tools if you slip and hit the clamp.

So lets make a 12” handscrew clamp from readily available materials and components. It’s easy to modify this design for smaller or larger clamps.

A straight piece of a 2 by 4 with no knots

3/4” diameter oak or hardwood dowel

2 feet of threaded rod, 1/4”-20

1/4” hex nuts, washers, and fender washers

2 threaded wood inserts, 1/4”-20

Epoxy glue

You could also use 3/8"-16 threads and 1” dowels for a beefier clamp, or make a nicer build by using hardwood jaws from cut-offs you have lying around.

From the 2 by 4 cut two clamp jaws that are 1.5” by 1.25” by 12” long. Cut the 3/8” and 3/4” holes as shown in the drawing (Handscrew Drawing.pdf, two pages). Taper the outside tips if you wish.

Cut four 1.25” long pieces off the oak dowel. Insert the dowel pieces into the jaws and drill a 3/8” hole through each dowel using the 3/8” hole you drilled earlier to guide your drill bit. Remove two dowel pieces and install the threaded inserts into the dowels until they are flush. Re-insert the two dowels into the jaws and line up the 3/8” holes/threaded inserts. The other two dowels will not have a threaded insert. As indicated in the picture I have dowels with threaded inserts in position 1 and 4.

Cut two pieces of threaded rod to 10” length. Make two handles from the 2 by 4 - mine are hexagonally shaped - and drill a hole down the center. Epoxy the handles onto the threaded rod and let it cure overnight. Now screw in the 1/4”-20 rods through the threaded inserts. Install the hex nuts, washers, and fender washers as shown, but be sure to leave a little play around the jaw. Tighten each pair of nuts so that they won’t unthread when the rod is turned.

Your handscrew clamp is done!

For clamping set the jaws to the approximate size of the workpiece, then alternately turn the left/right handle to increase the clamping pressure. You achieve the best results by having the jaws parallel to the clamped surfaces of the workpiece. The more jaw-to-workpiece contact the better.

Clamp one or two jaws of the handscrew to your workbench for a temporary vise. Use it to hold a workpiece while drilling, sawing, sanding, chiseling, carving.

This DIY handscrew works slightly different than the commercially available models. Commercial handscrews use threaded rods with both right and left handed threads on the same rod. As a consequence you can ‘wind’ the handscrew to open or close it quickly. That is not possible with this design; for that you would need to buy the specialty left/right handed thread rods.

For oddly shaped work prepare the jaws to resemble the shape of the workpiece. The more contact between the workpiece and the jaws, the greater the holding power.

Glue 80 or 100 grit sandpaper to the jaws to increase holding power.

Cut a groove or notch into the jaws for round pieces. Two examples are shown.

Move the handles to the same side if required for the specific clamping job. See last two pictures.

You can replace the jaws and reuse the dowels and threaded rods with handles for a brand-new clamp.

You can also use the clamp as a spreader.

Remember: You can never have enough clamps!