Grounding with adapted table clamping plier - concept

[AfreakanHobbyist]

Welding return cable attachment.
I’ve found great usefulness in turning a vise grip style table mounting clamping plier into my ‘ground clamp’.

Because of two features prominently. The quick action of locking it on (one handed, with a squeeze, in the dark); and the ability to fit whatever ‘anvil’ portion i need to it. So it solves the issue of quickly and easily attaching strongly to a wide variety of work pieces. AND is customizable to many special scenarios / tasks, by attaching a special anvil for that task.
Special tasks could include things like:

• Anvils shaped to hold specific work pieces. Or to fit inside tubes. Etc…
• Anvils carrying back-side shielding gas through them (combined function).
• Anvils needing to be of a specific material (eg, non-carbon steel ).
• Offset (dropped jaw shape) anvils to increase the size of what it can clamp to.
• Replace-able (sacrificial?) anvils. For instance for cases when a job requires welding right next to the clamp, or initiating arc on it, etc…

Secondarily it has :-

• Great capacity (opens wide to grip onto large work pieces).

• Hangs easily on things between use. So you have somewhere to put it (securely) for quick and easy grabbing again when you need it next (without bending to reach the floor say). You seriously don’t know how nice this is till you have it.
  

  

• Some ‘round things holding’ ability (it hooks around cylinders, vs squishing between flat jaws).
  

  

• Since it’s a clamp, it can hold parts together while being the grounding connection.
  

  
  
  Or hold parts to fixtures, like when many work pieces need to be cycled quickly.

By mounting the anvil (eg: in a vise) the clamp becomes a small parts holder.

In other words, it ticks a LOT of boxes. Meaning it can be an excellent ‘usually attached’ ground clamp, or one’s only ground clamp.
Mine is a Vise-Grip brand (not intended specifically for fabrication), and it’s peg is threaded for bolting down to a table / surface. I imagine that the Inserta Clamp in the FireBall store could be adapted to achieve the same thing.

[Rambozo]

Very cool. I think I will do the same thing, but maybe kick it up a notch by using a self adjusting vise grip so I can use it one handed. Is that a copper bar you have on there?

[AfreakanHobbyist]

I love the idea of the self-adjusting type for this. If i had the capacity to source any parts, i would do that. So please show if you do it.
Mine doesn’t have / show a copper bar. I was setting up to use a brass bar that i have, but just couldn’t bring myself to ‘lose’ this valuable (to me) chunk. What i did instead is to have the majority of the ‘anvil’ bar be steel for rigidity, and run a strip of more conductive material as the ‘contact’ face. Aluminum in my case, because it’s what i had. Originally i thought to run beads of SiBr to clad the contact surface of a steel anvil. But the aluminum strip seemed conductive enough (not as much as copper / bronze, but WAY more than steel). If i were designing this as a product or from scratch it’d have a number of characteristics differing from the cobbled together version i show. I’m hoping to inspire others to imagine their ideal version.