Soprano Bridge Clamp

humblej

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Needing a small deep throat clamp for gluing a soprano bridge and remembering seeing some of various sizes somewhere, started searching the usual hardware stores but couldn't find one now that I needed it. Having exhausted all my usual places for tools I increased my search and found them today at the cheap Chinese tool store, Harbor Freight, for $2.50 each. I glued an offset to the jaw to clear the internal bracing on the soundboard. Perfect.
 

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Brilliant! Just what I need to repair my Pohaku that suffered an unfortunate ‘I forgot to close the case’ injury resulting in a popped off bridge.
Cheers!
 
Needing a small deep throat clamp for gluing a soprano bridge and remembering seeing some of various sizes somewhere, started searching the usual hardware stores but couldn't find one now that I needed it. Having exhausted all my usual places for tools I increased my search and found them today at the cheap Chinese tool store, Harbor Freight, for $2.50 each. I glued an offset to the jaw to clear the internal bracing on the soundboard. Perfect.

Looks perfect. Just don't over tighten and starve the join. So tempting and easy to do...
 
Those are what I use, as well. I got most of my clamps from HF, although I'm slowly replacing them with wooden cams. I did the same, and glued on the the the little block to clear the bracing. Although I recently eliminated the the need for it by using a thick-enough caul on the inside, which I pre tape in there before closing up the box.
Also, I wrapped the vertical part of the C clamp in cork and tape to keep from dinging the soundhole.
 
Also, I wrapped the vertical part of the C clamp in cork and tape to keep from dinging the soundhole.

That is actually important because you can ding the fragile thin sound hole inserting the clamp and it LOOKS AWFUL and is virtually impossible to fix. I know. I've done it... I have little plastic caul thingies on my clamps that have a concavity thingy that tells me when I'm lined up with my brace which tells me that the clamp is aligned underneath the bridge. SMD no longer sells them. You can make your own. Very useful.
 
Thank you for confirming those fit!

Grabbed a couple of those little guys when I was buying the 5" version from HF for the tenor in building, hoping they'd be the right size when I get to a soprano build.

It's comforting to know that $5 didn't go to waste 🙂
 
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