IRWIN QUICK-GRIP Bar Clamp, One-Handed, Heavy-Duty, 50-Inch (1964716), Blue

I'm a hardcore woodworker. I've used these heavy duty clamps for about 20 years. The only thing better than one of these clamps is several of them. With a little practice you can routinely reach for one of these clamps with one hand (while the other hand is holding a couple pieces of wood together), flip the clamp upside down, press the release trigger, and gravity will slam it shut. Then you can torque it as tight as you want with the big trigger. These clamps can squeeze as hard as a screw clamp, but they're 10 times faster and don't mar the wood. A friend of mine at work said he wouldn't buy these because the jaws are plastic. He is a fool who will never know what he's missing. These clamps are incredible tools. I recommend, and I'm certain you won't regret your purchase.

Love this clamp. Works well, easy to use. I have several Irwin clamps and this one was just the latest addition.

I ended up with eight of these for a very involved roofing project. The 2x6x16 lumber used was from a big box store, poorly dried and warped horribly when left out while building the lean to roof. Used these to 'straighten' the rafters using both clamp and spreader configuations during sheathing installation, fix the rafter bird mouth cut to the 4x6 header while fastening with screws to maintain a tight joint. These work wetted by the rain as well as they do dry, although I did blow them down with compressed air after removal. These clamp TIGHT with little to no flex of the bar between the ends. Impressive quality!

Very sturdy and does the job very well

I’ve used Irwin clamps for a long time. Recently I tried a slightly more expensive clamp and I ended up returning these after noticing that the ability to switch from clamping to spreading was significantly easier with a different manufacturers clamp. My experience is that these clamps last a long time but its nice to have the optional features work smoothly.

You, know, I've been replacing some of my old, wore out tools lately and this is the second(and third because I bought 2) clamp that I bought in the last month(see my review of "Olympia Tools 38-158 8" X 4" Quick Release C Clamp" that when I opened the box, my jaw dropped, these are huge! Lol, I just figured it was Amazon putting a small item in a big box again! I bought these to replace a pair of the original 6" Irwin clamps that I broke and had already tossed so I couldn't comparing them, but these thing are massive! Like the other reviewer said, these 2nd gen clamps have much more clamping force then the old ones I had, which broke while spreading, these worked much better at the same task, it took less operator input and they didn't bend as much as my old ones either. I have very large hands so the increased size for me is a bonus, but my much smaller wife had a little difficulty with them so keep that in mind. I really like the included jaw pad thing, which allows you to use these in place of the more expensive parallel bar clamps but you can take it off to get more clearance. Irwin kind of has a choke hold on the market, I have tried many other brands of these quick release clamps and they just are not as good. I think the original Irwin clamps are still a good idea to keep around as these Gen 2 clamps might not be able to get in to a tight spot as well, but I most definitely will be purchasing these in other sizes, these are the best of the best if this is the type of clamp your looking for.

I’m an artist and use these clamps to assemble panels. Let me just say most clamps have me in tears because they hurt my hands so bad my. Not these ones! They’re also stronger than the numerous other kinds that made me cry, not painful to use, and super effective. Don’t waste your money on other clamps. save yourself some time and get these ones.

I needed a clamp because I was re-gluing laminate on the keyboard drawer of my office desk. This was EXTREMELY handy because I was able to do the clamping 1-handed even with a large clamp like this. Didn't even need a helper to get my job done.I experimented with some woodworking many years ago and used a couple of pipe clamps, but this is the most convenient clamp I can imagine. It's big enough to be useful on a lot of different jobs. Slides easily, releases easily, and ratchets down easily.Almost makes me wish I had more projects to do that need a clamp!