When working on a staircase, I needed a way to reach past a banister and apply clamp pressure. So I devised these jaw extenders for my F-style bar clamps. I later realized they would work for almost any job where I wanted to extend the clamp’s reach. A hole could be drilled through both jaws if you wanted to use a pipe clamp.

I made the wood jaws a bit beefy for the job at hand, but they could be sized in all sorts of ways. I used construction lumber and bought a big dowel. Both jaws are drilled for the dowel, and the fixed jaw is glued in place on one end. Another option is to use a length of 2×2 lumber instead of the dowel, dadoing each half of each jaw to create a square hole. I added small pads to the jaws to concentrate the clamp pressure.

—Roger Kaldahl, Eugene, Ore.

Drawings by Dan Thorton

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