"Making a Portable Clamp Rack"

Before we can mount the vertical standards, we want to see how they will be mounted with the clamp rack fixtures that I got from Woodpeckers. They are 36" wide and have three key slots punched into them. Clearly I want to use these key slots and not drill new  holes.    Also, while we made the clever sloping uprights, we don't want the clamps to be hanging down at that angle, so we will have to cut extenders to bring the rack out a bit.    To find out how far out, Andrea has clamped a short piece of 2 x 4 and hangs one of the longer clamps.
	This side view shows how the cross brace must extend in order for the clamps to hang straight. The bit that extends out the left side will be cut off. Two clamps hold everything in place just for this look-see.
A week has gone bye, and Elena is gaining headway on the stand. She is really mounting things backwards. She has cut the 2 x 4 extenders and screwed them to the heavy steel clamp rack using the key hole slots and 3" lag screws.    This then tells her the spacing of the uprights. She just moves them up against the extensions and glues and screws to each upright.
	When we attempted to stand the unit up, we found that it was very wobbly and needed to have some cross structure. Elena attaches a two foot wide panel of particle core board on the front and back to give some lateral strength.
She uses 3 1/2" deck screws to fasten the board to the uprights.

	With the stand still on the worktable, Elena can clamp the base to the legs and use 3 1/2" lag screws to hold them together.
She poses with the newly completed clamp rack. It is big. But, then again, it has to be big to hold all the clamps. In fact, it only holds about 1/3 of the clamps I have — so next time.
	Another week, and we attack the dear clamp rack project. Elena did what we should have done at the outset — laid all the clamps out. Those that are on the table are all the ones we could find other than the ones already on the other side of the rack.    She holds another rack where she think the next row should be located.
She is mounting some 2 x 4 brackets to which she can add screws to hold the next rack.
	She has made real progress. The clamp rack is complete. It is big and very heavy — and somewhat tip able. I would not want to be near by when it does turn over. We may install a couple of handles so that we can pull and push with cart using a low center of gravity. We may also use a few bungee cords to keep the long rods from banging all over the place. The Woodpecker clamp racks do a nice job of holding these clamps.