Tips for Storing and Organizing Clamps

I own a lot of clamps don't hate me. It's because one of the things I do in this building is teach classes. So remember that I need enough clamps that a bunch of people can be working all at the same time. So I says to myself I say, in the not too distant past. I need a much better way to organize and store my clamps. So let's look at two systems I use here. Pipe and bar clamps on this side and then primarily F style clamps over on that side. So here's what I did. This hanger is really, really, really simple. All it is, is three quarter inch plywood basically built like a ladder. So even though you may not have a number of clamps that I have or maybe you do or more good for you, you can adapt this system to work for you. It leans against the wall at 10 degrees. So there's a four inch wide piece of three quarter inch plywood cut at 10 degrees on the bottom, leans against the wall. Then another one, then another one, then another one. And then there are horizontals like Purlin on a pole barn that connect them, also four inches wide. Everything is just glued and stapled together. Plywood is incredibly strong stuff. So as a system, this is gonna work really, really well. Now, one of the things I did, I was a little concerned about the one by fours being this way and maybe having a tendency to walk a little bit cocky a little bit over time, a lot of weight here. So on the back of the ladder, there's a one by four glued and stapled to the back of the one by four at the very top. And there's another one stapled to the back of the one by four plywood at the very bottom. So I have one, two, three, four I've got five horizontals on the front, two horizontals on the back. Everything is the same size. My horizontals are a full eight feet. My verticals again are cut to tilt at 10 degrees. That 10 degrees is plenty stable, there's no way that with that weight on there this is gonna come forward. So that did great for my pipe and bar clamps, spacing on the horizontals. I just literally held clamps on there and kind of guesstimated where I wanted a horizontal to go. Then you can do that the same way, you just kind of swag the position and had horizontals as you need to. Now the other clamps. For this one what I did is I screwed one by fours to my wall and then to the one by fours, I fastened pipes and caps and a flange, So home center stuff. For most of the clamps, half inch pipe work Great. So half inch pipe, half inch cap, half inch floor flange with a 12 inch long pipe. 12 inches, you can get longer pipe but I think you'd end up with so much leverage out here with the weight of the clamps. You'd end up tearing the floor flange off of the one by four. So I found 12 inches, a good marriage between loading it up with clamps, but not cutting it so heavy it's not going to take the load. On some of the clamps, I went with a smaller pipe. So what I found was that spring clamps like this, if I go to 1/2 inch pipe, the cap on half inch pipe is too big for this to slip over. And I didn't want to have to squeeze these every time I was taking them on and off. So with these, I went with 3/8 inch pipe same deal, 3/8 floor flange, 3/8 cap. Now again, I own a boatload of clamps, so there's a lot of clamps here, but as storage systems go regardless of whether you have more or less than I do. I think that the system of using the pipe to hang them on works really well. And what I did is I got them on the wall is I staggered their positions. So if you look at kind of the vertical alignment here this set of clamps is here and then this set of clamps is centered, this pipe system is centered between the two pipe systems above it. So that lets me nest another set of clamps in between here, that saves me on vertical space. Overall, I don't know, this has been this way for a month or so, I guess, maybe a little more than a month. And I'm really happy with how this setup works. In both cases, it makes it visually easy to see which clamp is where and it makes it easy to get them on and off the rack. So that, especially on, I actually put them away when I'm done with them. Hopefully some of this information is gonna help you and you'll be able to use some of this system in your shop to organize your clamps too.