Hey everybody, it’s that time of year again – it’s the Anarchist’s Gift Guide. We’ve been doing this for more than a decade now, people seem to like it, so I guess we’ll keep it up. Why? Unlike some other gift guides, ours isn’t sponsored. (In fact, if somebody asked us to write about their tool for the gift guide, our standard retort would be: “Why don’t you poop up your own butt?”) This is stuff we use and love. We have 11 offerings this year, and will publish one a day until we’re done. – Chris & Fitz
Baby Bessey Tradesman Clamps
We own dozens of the 6″ Bessey F-style clamps for our shop. These miniature clamps get into places that our big clamps can’t. They are especially ideal for tricky repairs where you need a lot of strength applied to a small place and at a weird angle.
We always bought our 4″ clamps from the home center or when our local woodworking supplier, Mueller, would put them on sale. They’re made in China and use zinc castings. They are OK, and I didn’t think there were other options available.
While teaching in Germany one summer I picked up one of the small Bessey clamps in the shop where I was working and was shocked to see it was German-made and was part of the company’s Tradesman line of clamps, which are the best.
This German clamp was considerably different than our Chinese-made Besseys. It had malleable iron jaws and could crank down with more pressure than the Chinese ones. Plus, the German version had two plastic pads instead of one.
I bought a bunch of these small Tradesman clamps in Germany and shipped them back to the States. You can do the same thing – Dictum carries them. They are also being sold by Rob Cosman in Canada, who has been trying to get Bessey to sell them in North America for a long time.
If you don’t have any small F-styles, you should definitely fix that deficiency. And the little Tradesman ones are the best. The ones I imported are the TG10/100×50 clamps. These have 4” opening with a 2” jaw depth. – CS
Sorry did I miss day 4?
I was wondering the same thing…
It looks like everyone did. To be fair, they’re trying to get get at least one book out and I think Fitz has a class coming up.
Oops – sorry!!! I did post them all…I just can’t count the days… But it explains why I had one leftover (it’s a bonus day at the end, now!)
They carry what looks to be the same clamp at a Canadian store, http://www.busybeetools.com
LM2004 BESSEY F CLAMP 2″ X 4″, C$9.50 per clamp
Sorry, that appears to be the Chinese one. Although the Cosman ones seem sold out, and not exactly cheap.
After Christmas is over it might be interesting to compare Cosman and Dictum. At the moment Google thinks 1 euro is US$1.15, and 1 Canadian dollar is US$.71. If you buy 4 Dictum looks like the far better deal but watch out for shipping! Something happened to the cost of shipping small packages a few years ago, suddenly much higher, but at the moment if there are no tariff complications it looks like in the US Dictum plus shipping is likely to be better than Cosman plus shipping…..
Leevalley sells a Chinese version by Duratec (https://www.leevalley.com/en-us/shop/tools/hand-tools/clamps/bar/113780-light-duty-fast-acting-clamps).
There’s a larger version (4” throat, 8” length) that’s ez to find on the big river: BESSEY TG4.008+2K
There’s also a Bessey 135 year pair set (TGA10-SET-135) at many retailers with a 4.5” throat, 10” length so it can’t fit everywhere the smaller clamps do, but similar construction to the smaller clamp
Kms tools in Canada carries the German ones.
It doesn’t say so on the website, but when I went to my local store every clamp was labeled Germany.
If it’s helpful to anyone, the 4″ clamps linked in the “Dictum carries them” link are not the Besseys. They’re Dictum-branded clamps, also cast iron and very similar to the Bessey 4″ clamps. The cast iron on the Dictum-branded clamps is not coated.
Here are the Dictum-branded clamps: https://www.dictum.com/en/dictum-spheroidal-cast-iron-screw-clamp-throat-depth-50-mm-capacity-100-mm/720413
And here are the Bessey clamps: https://www.dictum.com/en/bessey-malleable-cast-iron-screw-clamp-throat-depth-50-mm-capacity-100-mm/705713
I got lucky with the tariff lottery, I guess, and got some of each before the shipping/import taxes went insane. Admittedly, I accidentally bought the Dictum-branded ones thinking they were Bessey. But the quality seems good and they clamp better than the ones available here in the U.S. If anyone wants pictures, I can send them to you.