Clamps!

Ok, after being sufficiently distracted by PDRacers, I went down to Carbatec to buy a Japanese saw and a waterstone for sharpening my planes and chisels. I ended up with a 300mm 12tpi crosscut 'Z' saw which cost $51.. on the cheap end of the saws at Carbatec but sufficient for my purposes.








I also got a 1200 grit Japanese waterstone (if anyone can translate the Japanese on the photos below for me that would be great!)



After all this, it was off to Trade Tools to see what they had in the way of cheap clamps - not a great deal as it turned out! I cleaned them out of this pile of cheap spring clamps ($2.90 ea).



I also picked up some Ratchet Clamps at $5.50 each - these dont have great clamping pressure - about as much as you can put in by hand, but they do have a metal ratchet which means they arn't as likely to come loose as the plastic bar clamps which are hopeless.



I also picked up a couple of these nifty looking quick release C-clamps for a couple of bucks each, so I'll give them a go and see how long they last.