Pro Style Deep Throat Cam Clamps

No, this is not a Linda Lovelace tribute post - I'm sure you're all disappointed. Building a guitar calls for a lot of specialty tools. Ken's kit comes with a kit to build three cam clamps. The deep throat refers to the reach of the clamp. You'll see what I mean.

The raw materials:



So what you get are three pre-patterned wood pieces, the aluminum bars and the pins. Step one is to finish cutting out the pre-patterned arms. And, of course, my close friend Murphy showed up. I have a pretty good jigsaw, a Bosch, highly rated but not too expensive. It has a locking mechanism to hold the blade in place. There is no screw to tighten. This means when the locking mechanism breaks there is no way to attach the blade. You know your blade is securely locked when you rotate the grip clockwise and hear three clicks. Opened it up, set the blade, rotated the grip, heard click one, heard click two, and then the grip just spun around, there was no third click and there was never going to be a third click. I thought maybe two clicks was enough. I wiggled the blade and it felt pretty secure. So I plugged it in and started ripping. I was maybe 1/2 inch into the first cut when the blade stuck in the wood and the jigsaw kept hammering. Apparently, two clicks wasn't enough.

Frustrating. I thought about taking it apart to find the problem. I'm no MacGiver but I can figure things out. I got the manual, looked at the schematic and my eyes glazed over. Plan B. Long before I bought the Bosch I had a Sears jigsaw. I remember buying it on sales\ for $14.99. Well you get what you pay for and $14.99 doesn't get you much. I forgot that one of its flaws was the stability of the holding mechanism. It held the blade securely but rotated to the right ever so slowly as you were cutting. Perfect if you are cutting ovals. Not so good on straight lines. So I finished the cutting as best I could.

After cutting, filing and sanding you are left with this:



Time for a little glue up. On day one I was going to learn that there is no such thing as too many clamps:

I waited a while for the glue to dry - I used Titebond original formula yellow carpenters glue - and started to assemble. Very straightforward, good directions, finished in about an hour. I used an all purpose drill bit on the aluminum and I did pin the pins with a drop of superglue. As most things in life go the second and third ones came out better than the first:

So the problem with the first one is I didn't pay attention to how much cam is exposed below the upper arm. When you turn the lever the cam doesn't come in contact with the material you are clamping. No big deal, I'll just make a new lever and line it up better before I install it. The other two work fine.

Now do you see what I mean about deep throat? Get your minds out of the gutter!!!