Clampocalypse Now: The Never-Ending Clamp Crisis

Every woodworker eventually faces the same terrifying realization: clamps multiply like rabbits, yet somehow you never have the one you actually need. You start with a couple of bar clamps, maybe a spring clamp or two, and before long your shop looks like a breeding ground for steel and plastic offspring. They’re everywhere—on shelves, under benches, hanging from walls—but when it’s time to glue up a project, the exact clamp you need is mysteriously missing, probably off on vacation with your tape measure.

If you’ve ever watched woodworking YouTube, you know the drill. Every shop tour features a massive wall of clamps that looks like it belongs in a medieval armory. Parallel clamps, F-style clamps, pipe clamps, C-clamps, quick-grip clamps—the list goes on. The host casually mentions, “You can never have too many clamps,” while standing in front of what appears to be a clamp collection worth more than my car. Meanwhile, I’m over here trying to hold two boards together with a knee, a prayer, and a questionable spring clamp from the bargain bin.

Clamps come in every flavor, from the $2 specials that bend if you look at them wrong, to the $260 parallel clamps that promise to hold your project square while simultaneously curing your imposter syndrome. But here’s the dirty secret: no matter how much you spend, you’ll still end up short. Buy cheap clamps, and you’ll curse their flimsy grip. Buy expensive clamps, and you’ll curse your empty wallet. Either way, you’ll be back at the store convincing yourself that this time you’re buying the “last clamp you’ll ever need.” Spoiler alert: you’re not.

The truth is, clamps are less of a tool and more of a lifestyle. You start small, then slowly escalate until your shop is a clamp sanctuary. You justify each purchase with logic like, “Well, I don’t have a 36-inch parallel clamp, and what if I need to glue up a dining table tomorrow?” Eventually, you’ll have so many clamps that you’ll need to build a project just to store them. And when that project requires clamps, you’ll realize—you guessed it—you still don’t have the right ones. Clampocalypse isn’t a one-time event. It’s a cycle. A never-ending, wallet-draining, shop-cluttering cycle.

So, do clamps really multiply like rabbits? Absolutely. Do you ever have enough? Never. And while YouTube woodworkers flaunt their clamp walls like trophies, the rest of us are stuck in the trenches, improvising with whatever mismatched collection we’ve cobbled together. But hey, at least clamps don’t judge us when we cut something wrong—they just quietly squeeze tighter, whispering, “You’ll buy more of us soon.”