G Clamp (2")

Name: G Clamp (2")
Brand: Harden
SKU: 600200

Item No. 600200

Price on request

Two inches is the smallest G clamp made, and it is bought for the jobs where there is simply nowhere to put anything larger. Clamping a fence to a drill table, holding a small jig in place, gripping a bracket while the first screw goes in, holding two small parts together for tacking — these are all situations where a bigger clamp will foul on something before its jaws ever reach the work.

The shape is the reason the tool has survived unchanged for a century and a half. A G clamp is a rigid iron loop with a screw closing the gap, and because the frame is one continuous piece there is nothing to slip, nothing to adjust and nothing to set up. You open the screw, drop it over the work and wind it shut. Compared with a bar clamp or a ratchet clamp it is slower to fit and far harder to dislodge, which is exactly why it remains the clamp of choice anywhere heat, hammering or vibration is involved.

It is made from high grade iron casting. Casting is the right process for this shape: the frame works almost entirely in compression and tension around a fixed loop, and iron is exceptionally strong in compression while being cheap to form into a curved section that would be difficult and expensive to forge. It is worth knowing the other side of that, though — cast iron does not bend before it breaks. A G clamp overtightened well past its rating does not deform and warn you, it lets go. On a two inch clamp the forces are small and this is largely academic, but the habit of tightening firmly by hand rather than with a bar through the handle is worth forming early.

The spindle runs on an acme thread, a squared-off trapezoidal thread form rather than the sharp V of an ordinary bolt. It winds smoothly, it does not jam under load, and it puts far more of your turning effort into clamping force.

The buyers at this size are electricians and technicians holding small assemblies, model and instrument makers, jewellers, joiners setting up jigs and fences, and anybody working on a bench where space is tight. Hardware dealers sell them in mixed sets more often than singly.

Two habits that make small clamps last. Put a scrap of card or thin ply between the jaw and anything you care about, because the flat steel pad will emboss its shape into timber and mark soft metal. And keep a drop of oil on the thread and in the swivel pad — a dry acme thread feels stiff, and people respond to stiffness by forcing it, which is how the small ones get broken. Message us on WhatsApp for a price, or for a spread of sizes, which is how most people end up buying G clamps.