Q: Is your Clamp Carrier a copy of one that's made in the U.S. (or Canada)?

A: No. Our factory in Taiwan has been engineering and building Clamp Carriers and Glue Applicators for 30 years. As an innovator in the field, our ongoing objective is to produce the most up-to-date, best-engineered gluing machines in the world. We can't meet this goal by copying other, older designs. There's not a single copied part on any of our machines.

Q: What is your smallest, least-expensive Clamp Carrier?

A: The 6-section Clamp Carrier is our smallest Carrier. With 6 clamps per section and a Pneumatic Clamp Tightener, it costs approximately $14,000. You can learn more about this machine by visiting our 6-section Clamp Carrier page.

Q: I see that the clamps on most of your Carriers have long, continuous screws. Aren’t the continuous-screw clamps slower than the ones with quick-adjusting rear jaws?

A: It can go either way, or make no difference, depending on what kind of Clamp Tightener you use, and the amount of set-up for varying panel widths your production runs require.

Bottom line: Our impact-style Clamp Tightener is so fast that our standard long-screw clamps are ideal for most applications. Some finer points:

If you’re doing very long production runs, where you don’t need to set up each section for different size panels, you won't need to move the rear jaws more than an inch or so anyway, so in this case both styles of clamp will be identical in speed.

If you don’t need to move the rear jaws more than, say, six inches on a machine with a Hydraulic Clamp Tightener or twelve inches on a machine with our Pneumatic Clamp Tightener (the Pneumatic Clamp Tightener is faster; see the last paragraph in this section) to set up for the next panel size, in this case the continuous-screw clamps will actually be a bit faster. You’ll be able to set up for the next panel size by simply running the Clamp Tightener for an extra second or two (you’re already performing this operation anyway), rather than having the clamp’s short screw force you to perform the additional operation of adjusting the clamp’s rear jaw by hand.

The only situation where the quick-adjusting rear jaws offer a speed advantage is where you need to move the rear jaws a longer distance, say, six (on a Hydraulic machine) or twelve (on our Pneumatic machine) inches or more, to set up for a new panel size. In this case, with a quick-adjusting clamp, you'll be saving approximately one second per inch of gross rear jaw adjustment per clamp on a Hydraulic machine, or 1/5 second per inch on our Pneumatic machine.

There are some longevity and maintenance cost factors to consider, as well. Quick-adjusting clamps all have short screws, so only a 3-inch or so section of the screw will get 90% of the wear and tear. This can cause the screw threads to wear out comparatively quickly, especially if your clamps have smaller-diameter screws. In general, the larger your screw diameter, and the more of the screw length that you can utilize, the longer your screws will last. Also, with quick-adjusting clamps, it's important for the Clamp Carrier operators not to allow the screws to protrude from the ends of the clamp nuts. Otherwise, when tightening a clamp, the screw will push the Clamp Tightener driver back far enough that it will not be able to remain engaged with the nut. The driver will then slip on the nut, often under maximum tightening torque. This causes drastically premature wear of the driver and nuts.

Keep in mind also, that the more moving parts your clamps have that can bend, stretch, fall out, wear out or break, the more time and money you’ll be spending later maintaining and repairing your clamps.

One basic thing to keep in mind: Our Pneumatic Clamp Tightener, which is an impact-style wrench, is aproximately five times faster under no-load conditions than either an air motor-style Clamp Tightener or a Hydraulic Clamp Tightener (including ours). Bottom line again: Our Pneumatic Clamp Tightener is so fast, and our standard clamps are so durable, that in the great majority of cases, the standard, long-screw clamp is your best choice.

Q: OK, but I see that you do offer quick-adjusting clamps, as well. I'll be doing a lot of different set-ups on a machine with a Hydraulic Clamp Tightener, so wouldn't they be the best choice for me?

A: Quite possibly. If you'll be regularly setting up for widely-varying panel sizes (with more than a 6" average difference in panel width on a machine with a Hydraulic Clamp Tightener, or 12" on a machine with a Pneumatic Clamp Tightener), our Quick-adjusting clamps may be for you. We have two styles:

Our Quick-Adjusting Rocker Style Clamp has no moving parts on the rear jaw; this maximizes strength, reliability and longevity of the clamp. The jaw is moved by rocking it forward, sliding it to the desired position, then rocking it back, so its pin inserts into the drawbar at the desired location.

Our Quick-Adjusting Latch Style Clamp has a rear jaw with a spring-loaded latch. Again, because of the vulnerability of the latch, spring and rivet to loss and breakage, this style of clamp is recommended mostly for light to medium-duty use.

For further information on the three styles of QUICK clamps, please visit our "Your Choice of Clamp Style" page.

Q: I see that you use an impact-style wrench with your Pneumatic Clamp Tightener. I've heard that using an impact wrench will destroy the clamps. Is this true?