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Pipe clamps are available in the factory or DIY varieties.

On pictures one can see the look of factory variants. What are the flaws of these models? Firstly they are expensive; secondly they are not readily available in lots of countries, and thirdly there are existing far cheaper and more attainable  DIY variants.

Conclusion that comes out about factory variants that should be used is clear by itself. From aforementioned reasons a lot of people resort to wooden clamps variations of pipe clamps, with more or less implementation of metal parts in them.

Wooden clamps are made as combination of wood and metal, and wood having the predominant role.

Wooden clamps are weaker by construction as much as wood material exists in the construction. Secondly some realizations of those clamps are somewhat time consuming. Models having wood as shaft material have no extension possibilities. Also wooden clamps are often considerably larger then metal ones.

Now take a look at my construction of pipe clamp in the picture on the left. Firstly, all elements are made of steel with the only exception of wooden block and wooden handle, which should be acceptable from the point of comfort, strength and functionality. The clamp is distributing the pressure to wooden block in the horizontal direction. This horizontal pressure is specially suitable for most carpentry projects, and predominantly for the horizontal board lamination as can be observed in the picture on the right.

The advantage of such horizontally distributed pressure is the saving of the number of used clamps in some jobs, especially in carpentry. Additionally horizontal lamination would have stronger joint because of pressure imposed in horizontal direction.

Here one can see the basic jaw parts. There are two clamping jaws. In the right hand part of the picture is the metal part of one jaw.

In the left part of the picture there are the jaw parts: a slider and three flat pieces above it. These three flat bars should be welded to the slider and forming a slot so it can accommodate a wooden block.

A slider is a 30mm square tubing.

Completed jaw is also presented in the picture. Make a note that during fabrication you should insure the vertical edges of flat bars to be truly vertical at the outside, because the wooden block is aligned to those edges.

Now here is the catch: you can use the jaw either with wooden block inserted in the slot, or you can turn the jaw and use it with no wooden block.

In the lateral flat profiles we shall drill a hole and make a thread in it for a screw. The screw purpose is to fix the wooden block in place so it cannot move during clamp manipulation.

You can see the equidistant holes on central bearing profile that is used to accept nails which fix the slider in specific position on bearing profile.

Wooden block consists of two parts glued together. The smaller part goes into jaw slot. After that the wooden block is fixed in place with screw by means of hand or wrench.

The central bearing profile is 25mm square tube. In the picture you can see extension by means of two bearing profiles and the short extension (30mm square profile).

The short extension profile has also two pairs of holes at both ends. These holes are aligned with end holes on bearing profiles and a nail is inserted through holes to achieve the extension.

Carpentry work: turn the jaws for horizontal pressure distribution. This is probably unique solution.

Simulating carpentry mode of work on factory made pipe clamps (classical design) by using additional pieces of wood is not the replacement for my proposed clamp. Namely inserting wooden blocks does not give precise, parallel and firm support. On the contrary to that simulation, the adopted wooden blocks in my construction goes deeply into the jaw slot in my clamp and give balanced pressure to the work piece.

Carpentry mode of work provide for clean work without scars on soft wood, that would be the opposite in the case of metal work (see the text below). In the case of work with larger number of clamps, this mode of operation will potentially lower the number of clamps needed.

Metal work: by turning the jaws on my clamp 180°, the clamp gets ready for the classical work like classical pipe clamps. This mode of operation can be called "metal mode of operation". In the picture you can see that.

Clamp is cheaper for production than some Internet solutions and all factory made ones when delivered with pipe. Manufacturing time for this clamp is mostly shorter then wooden supposed-to-be solutions for pipe clamps offered on Internet.

Clamp is also very suitable for small workshops because of compactness. By construction all crucial parts are made of steel and from pieces readily available for DIY work.

Clamp has firm construction and can be extended to form clamp of arbitrary length.