Harbor Freight Bar Clamp: Plywood Handle

After only a dozen years, one of the 3D printed replacement handles for my Harbor Freight bar clamps snapped exactly where you’d expect:

The replacement this time around is laser-cut plywood, with a pair of 3 mm sheets glued together to just about match the original thickness:

I hacked the OpenSCAD code to use its projection() operation to export the outline of the solid model on the XY plane, inhaled the SVG into LightBurn, replaced the original chunky hole with a Real Circle, cut a pair of them, discovered I messed up the diameter, tweaked that, cut a pair that fit perfectly, and that was that.

Flushed with success, I cut another pair to replace the (not yet failed) handle in the other HF bar clamp and restarted the failure clock.

Not as fancy as something milled on the Sherline, but way easier and, if it lasts another decade, I’ll call it a win.

The WordPress AI had fun with this post:

The thing over on the left must be a 3D printer, but what’s floating in the middle? Those hand tools look downright scary.