Mini Cam Clamp

V-3867

A lighter, smaller cam clamp for guitar building and repair.

Video Transcription

Dan Erlewine: I'm Dan Erlewine. These are cam clamps and you've probably used them before. They have a lot of uses in a shop, but they can be too big and heavy for brace and bridge repair. Lots of times I wish they were skinnier like that. These are my Mini Cam Clamps. They're thin and light and they're accurate. They make it easy to see what I'm doing, so I'm really getting the clamp in the spot that needs it. Because they're skinny, you can fit more of them through the sound hole. The lower jaw has a different shape. The cutaway lets the clamp reach over braces. I'll show you what I mean. We'll use the see through guitar.

To clamp that brace, it means my clamp has to clear this brace. And regular cam clamps won't always do that, especially with tall braces. It ends up contacting here and bottoms out. If you're contacting there, you won't get good pressure here. Many cam clamps are strong, light and fast perfect for guitar repair.

Shop tip

Here's something you can make for your work bench. It's a padded body support to hold a guitar that's in your repair vice. It's a padded block of wood glue to a fat dowel with cross holes in it, and it's got a little indexing pin. If a customer brings in a guitar and my bench is dirty, this lifts me up off that in a hurry. Gives me a safe spot to put this old J-45.