Clothes Pins into modelers clamps

Here's a short tutorial on how to turn an ordinary wooden clothes pin into a handy flat clamp.

Although this ordinary type of clamp may be used in many situations to hold two parts together, we sometimes need a clamp for a larger, even surface, like when glueing two pieces of styrene sheet together.

First we disassemble the pin. It consists of two shaped wooden parts and one metal spring.

Then we open the spring and insert one wooden part upside down into the spring and slide the second part also reversed under the spring, like seen in the photograph. This is the most difficult part of the assembly because you might brake off one of your finger nails :(

The finished result looks like this. This type of clamp is not opening as wide as the original clothes pin but for holding flat surfaces together it works just fine.

The picture above shows one of its many uses when assembling two or three layered structure parts like billboards or laminated wall sections.

Have fun with my little conversion project. Take care of your fingernails and remember that these clamps will not hold wet clothes on the line for drying anymore. :)