Harbor Freight Bremen k-body parallel clamp review - compare to Bessey

hi folks thanks for joining my name is Dennis recently Harbor Freight released a new k-body parallel clamp called the Bremen I picked up a couple to see how they perform and how they compare stay with me and I'll walk you through what I found so from an orientation perspective I've got the Harbor Freight Bremen on the left hand side the Bessie on the right hand side and they're both 24 inch clamps and with the exception of the configuration of the lower jaw visually they're pretty similar and more than that many of the measurements are virtually the same across the two clamps the height and width of the upper jaw is virtually the same the heightened width of the Rails are virtually the same and the width of the pads the lower jaw are virtually the same some of the differences are that there's a little bit extra distance distance in the throat of the Harbor Freight the rail is about an inch longer and on the Betsy side the handle is a little bit longer than the harbor freight and it's a little bit wider but other than that the configuration is very similar so now let's take a look at some of the similar features between the two clamps both clamps have workpiece supports that prevent the work piece from coming into contact with the rail and both clamps have feet at the bottom of the rail in order to keep the end of the clamp in plane with the upper and lower Jaws the upper jaws of both clamps have a slight cant downwards towards the lower jaw and on the Bessie side they indicate that the clamp should normally be what they call quote toe in when at rest or under minimal pressure and the clamp is not calibrated to be at 90 degrees at all times Under Pressure the intent is for the Jaws to align to be parallel so in this case it looks like the Harbor Freight clamp is aligning to that approach as well so here's an example of the cant that we just talked about you can see how the lower jaw is flush with the material the upper jaw the toe is touching the material but the upper or the inside portion of the upper jaw is not and as I start to tighten down you can see how the Jaws become parallel here's an example with the Harbor Freight same situation you see the lower jaw is flush with the material the upper jaw only the toe is touching and as I go ahead and tighten down you can see how the Jaws become parallel both clamps have the ability to be used as spreaders with the Harbor Freight you'd remove the foot at the bottom go ahead and remove the lower jaw and just slide it back on again in the opposite direction and I find it's much easier to insert the lower jaw in the opposite direction by standing the clamp up on its upper jaw and inserting the the lower jaw onto the rail again in the opposite direction foreign and lastly in terms of similarities both clamps are made in China okay let's talk about some of the differences between the two clamps the thing that strikes me most when looking at both clamps is the finish on the rails and you can see that the Bessie clamp has a smooth polished finish whereas the Harbor Freight Bremen has a rough dull finish and based upon the little knowledge I have around steel fabrication there are three ways to fabricate Steel Cold rolled method cold drawn method and hot roll method and Bessie uses the cold drawn method which is the most complex of all three but results in a greater tensile strength which means that it's going to resist deforming and braking under tension and it also results in this polished finish as well and that leads me to believe again based upon my initial analysis that the Harbor Freight Bremen model is fabricated using the hot rolled method that results in this type of finish it's also a less complex in terms of process to fabricate the seal that way and it also results in a a tensile strength that is not as great as the cold rolled methods or the cold withdrawn method so that could account for certainly differences in price in terms of strength the only thing I have that can give me an indication of the difference between tensile strength between the cold and hot methods is the advertising material the Harbor Freight Bremen has a clamping force of up to 1300 pounds whereas the Bessie has a clamping Force an everyday clamping force of up to 1700 pounds so that gives you some indication of what the differences are and how that steel is fabricated and produced another important difference between the two clamps are these pins on the Bessie these pins are drilled directly through the rail and provide a really tight integration between the upper jaw and the rail for increased ability and I don't see that on the Harbor Freight Bremen model there is a pin here that I removed in the hopes of opening this back door to see what's inside but I was unable to do so the pin is too far to the left it doesn't go through the rail itself and the only thing I could think of is that if I look at both lower Jaws both in the Bessie and the Harbor Freight there are pins on either side of the rail going in this direction and on this side in this direction my only guess is that the Harbor Freight model employed that same approach in the upper jaw and the only way I'll be able to find out is if we hear something from the manufacturer or if I'm able to open up the upper jaw at some point to verify what's going on there but for now it doesn't look like that tight integration is that the bestie has is incorporated into the Harbor Freight Bremen model but again that's only my guess since I'm not able to look inside another difference between the two clamps is the hex key at the bottom of the Bessie handle and that's used to actually add additional clamping force or it's used by people who have issues with wrist string another difference I found between the two clamps is the anti-slide capability of the Bessie clamp I could hold it upright like that and the jaw the lower jaw will remain in place I could turn it upside down and the lower jaw remains in place as well and I don't find that same capability into Harbor Freight it'll hold its position if I hold it upright like this but if I turn it upside down that Joel we'll just start to slide right down something to be aware of so what I'd like to do now is to run some comparative tests to determine whether or not the Jaws stay parallel when under tension and here I've got some uh one and or two inch Maple uh using the Bessie clamps and tighten down pretty hard and if I move the square over to the upper jaw you could see some daylight where the jaw meets the material and to try to gauge how much of a distance that is I'll use my sterret blade and see if I could zero in on that that looks like about a 64th which isn't bad at all very acceptable now I'll try that with the Harbor Freight clamps and here I've got the same setup with the Harbor Freight clamps tightened down pretty hard and if I move a square to the upper jaw again you can see a little daylight towards the bottom where the jaw meets the material I'll try to measure that out again as well and that looks to be not quite a 30 second so that's uh that's pretty good considering this is the Harbor Freight model that's pretty impressive actually okay so here I'm looking to see how much the bar deflects under tension and I'm using the Bessie clamps first okay so that's about a sixteenth of an inch or 0.063 let's see how the Harbor Freight does okay and here's the Harbor Freight tightening down now trying to make sure I exert the same amount of pressure thank you so that deflection measures not quite three thirty seconds I'm looking at 5 64 which comes to 0.078 so the difference between the two the best in the harbor freight is .015 less than a sheet of paper it's pretty impressive for Harbor Freight so here I'm just joining up two pieces of pine I just want to see how the clamps react under pressure in terms of the joint line if there's any bowing and so forth so let's tighten these up all right and I'm making them fairly snug nice and flat and right now I'm looking to see if there's any gaps between the board and the rails I'm not seeing any on that side foreign I'm not seeing any on that side so these are the Bessie clamps and these as expected perform pretty well typically I would put another clamp in the center but this is just for informational purposes I'll do the same scenario with the Harbor Freight clamps tighten them up fairly snug all right nice and flat I want to make sure that the there's no gaps between the wood and the rail and this one looks pretty good and this side looks pretty good as well foreign in the Jaws when thinner material is clamped between the Jaws so if I move the Square over you could see some daylight at the bottom of the jaw where it meets the work material and if I measure that out that looks to be about a 30 second and I want to just compare that to the harbor freight here's the Harbor Freight I've got that clamped down pretty well as well and if I move the square there you'd also see some daylight between the clamp and the bottom of the square and if I look to measure that distance it's slightly more than a 30 second it's not a sixteenth but it's slightly more than a 30 second pretty respectable so we covered a lot of territory and I have to say that I'm really surprised and impressed with the quality of the Harbor Freight clamps I put them through a lot of tests over the past couple days comparing them to the bessies and I have to say that they performed really well within small tolerances when compared against each other that's pretty impressive the question is going to be would you recommend them for purchase and the answer is going to be it depends it depends upon the work that you do the budget that you have and your tolerance for risk if budget wasn't an issue I'd go with the besties why because they've been around for decades and I know the clamps last for decades the clamps you see behind me are all 15 plus years old so that I know that if I make a investment in Bessie they're going to be with me for a long time we're not sure about that with the Harbor Freight right it's a relatively new product it's got two reviews on the website the last time I checked and um it's got no track record so we don't know how it's going to perform over the long term I think Harbor Freight realizes that and they've um actually offered a lifetime guarantee with this product which really mitigates the fact that there's no track record for the product and makes a purchase of this product very attractive so I would feel comfortable recommending these depending upon your circumstances I purchased four of these I intend to keep them to use them and I'm curious to see how they perform over the long term hopefully I have them hope I'm hopeful that I have them for a number of years to come but if I don't I'll be taking advantage of that lifetime guarantee anyway I hope this helps I hope it was informative in helping you make any decisions you may be thinking about regarding clamps and I will see you next time take care

Channel: DIY with Dennis

Views: 61,021

Keywords: Harbor Freight, Harbor Freight Clamps, Harbor Freight Parallel clamps, Harbor Freight Bremen clamps, Bremen k-body clamps, Bremen k-body parallel clamps, Bremen parallel clamps, k-body clamps, parallel clammps, Bessey, Bessey clamps

Id: LtTvi7I30Ug

Length: 14min 36sec (876 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 11 2022