Fixing bar clamps that slip

If one is willing to forgo quality, bar clamps can be bought for amazingly little.

Unfortunately, some of these bar clamps often end up slipping if a significant amount of pressure is applied to them, which actually makes them worse than useless.

Having a number of such cheap clamps, I experimented with what could be done to them to stop the slipping. The best approach I have found is to use a hacksaw and roughen up the back of the bar a little bit.

This is done not so much by cutting little slots in the back, but by dragging the hacksaw blade across the back, with the saw held at an angle, both slanted sideways, and also moving not in the direction of the blade. This results in a lot of very small cuts in the back of the clamp, and keeps it from slipping.

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