TM’s 2008 Favorites: Irwin 6″ Quick-Grip Clamps
By Sean O'Hara
Scoff if you like, but these little blue clamps deserve to be here. We don’t often think about these 6” Irwin Quick-Grip trigger clamps until one of ‘em is broken. The truth is, we appreciate their inexpensive nature in a very unique way -– we use the living tar out of ‘em. We’ve tapped these things to squeeze together anything we could get their jaws around, and we never, not once, felt bad about it.
You can purchase far more expensive clamps or ones built entirely from steel, but since the Quick-Grips are radically cheaper and often easier to operate than those units, we can pick up a four-pack of Quick-Grips with a clear conscience — the four clamps offer us more clamping options than one expensive clamp.
If they get painted on, broken, burned up, or cracked, we just grab another one and move on -– no big deal. What we’re really saying is, these clamps fall in the sweet spot between ‘disposable’ and ‘too expensive to mess up.’ Are they the best clamp ever made? Of course not, they’re better than that: cheap and effective. We semi-abuse them to get whatever crazy project done because we know we can, and that pushes them into the Top Ten list this year.
Quick-Grip Clamps [Irwin]
Street Pricing [Google Products]
Via Amazon [What’s This?]
December 15th, 2008 at 1:10 pm
I have 4 in my shop and use them heavily. Now I want a pair of 12″ ones for when these aren’t quite long enough.
December 15th, 2008 at 1:29 pm
I have these and use them all the time. I also have several larger ones and all in all they are indispensable in my shop.
December 15th, 2008 at 1:56 pm
I couldn’t agree more. I have several sizes of these, but I use the 6″ and 12″ most often.
December 15th, 2008 at 7:20 pm
I have a pair of these blue ones as well as an old pair of black ones that that have just the Vise-Grip name. It’s too bad they changed the design when they merged with Irwin. The new style slips and doesn’t have the same clamping strength as the old ones. The new ones may be disposable but I have not found a suitable replacement for the old style.
December 15th, 2008 at 8:39 pm
Rarely in the shop for more than 10 minutes without reaching for on. Best extra hand there is except for the quiet blonde.
December 15th, 2008 at 11:37 pm
Adjustable has their version. same price range but they’re spreaders also, don’t slip,both ends are movable, and are made in the USA.
E-Z Hold clamps
December 16th, 2008 at 9:44 am
I have a few of these myself and I don’t have a single pipe-clamp . . . yet. These are definitely my go-to clamps.
December 19th, 2008 at 7:09 pm
If I had the money, I would only have these kinds of clamps! As it stand however, I have the more typical hodge-podge of pipe clamps, c-clamps, screw clamps, and a couple of those special purpose clamps that you buy for that one job…
But those quick-clamps always go onto the job site with me. In fact, my major gripe about my Craftsman tool box is that it isn’t big enough to hold these clamps!