Make Your Irwin Clamps Longer - for Free

When I'm working on a project in my shop the longer clamps are often committed to other jobs and I'm left with smaller clamps. The obvious answer is to get more clamps (you can never have enough of them), but often I only need another inch or two to make the smaller clamps work.

An easy mod to squeeze out another couple of inches is to knock out the little pin/collar at the end of the Irwin rod. I used a nail countersink set to pop it out. This gives about 2 more inches of travel making a 6.5" clamp a little over 8.5". And if the handle slides off it's not a problem; just hold down the trigger, push the set plate up a little and it goes back on.

The video shows the modified result.

Thanks for taking a look.