Insight And Experience Needed For Workshop Table Clamps

I have a Clarke lifting table which uses their equivalent of the WCR01 Sealey clamp. You clamp it by winding the left side clamp to pinch the tyre. With the Clarke version it is difficult to apply enough clamping pressure to hold the bike really firmly by the front wheel alone. So I either put it on a centrestand (which most my bikes have) before applying the clamp, or use additional tie down straps.

I have used similar to the Sealey roll in clamp in a van. It would be difficult to put a heavy bike on a centre stand with this design as you can't roll it back. As their ad says, the bike should be further strapped, not just relying on the clamp.

 

I junked the original vise style clamp as soon as I brought my bench and bolted down a roll in style one, sorry, I can't remember where it came from.
As has been mentioned by Geoffrey Lebowski neither design lends itself to the use of a centre stand. I only use rear paddock stands with hooks or clamps that flip themselves forward on wheels as you use them.

The clamp grabs the front wheel really securely the moment the rear part flips up, and I'm more than confident to let the bike just sit there on its own for a while whilst I get the rear paddock stand in place.



Note if I'm going to be working on the bike I often also have a small ratchet strap either side to strap the bike down and stop it falling over.

The obvious disadvantage of this type of front clamp is the inability to raise and remove the front wheel, Forks etc.
I wanted to be able to do this, so shortened the front legs very slightly so I could get my preferred under-headstock front paddock stand in as well.

I get the bike on a rear paddock stand:



Then lift the front end on the paddock stand:



Then disassemble the roll-in clamp from around the wheel:



Then do the reverse when I'm done.

It's all far more stable than the original clamp that came with the bench.
With that you had to hold the bike upright whilst trying to get a stand under it as well.

 

I find the vice type of clamp on my table quite useful, not as stable as a roll-in but (by redrilling the base of the table to widen the vice opening) I can also use it to hold the rear wheel which can be useful if you're working on the front end - can 'wheelie' the bike on the stand using rope/chain from a rafter so that the entire front end can be removed.

Otherwise to keep the bike stable I'll use a rear paddock stand along with the front vice.

Can also remove the vice and use front (paddock or roll-in) and rear stands for removing a wheel, or 2.

 

Agree with Duke Desmo's comments as I think the clamp stand is more versatile than the roll in stand. Not difficult to roll a bike onto the lift and then whilst holding the bike upright with one hand, wind the clamp with the other hand to secure the front wheel sufficiently to hold the bike in order to get a paddock stand at the rear.

For front end maintenance, wheel on and off, I'm still sufficiently agile enough to still use the garage floor, with a front and rear stand, as I find it much easier (safer) when loosening/tightening the front wheel spindle and much easier to bounce and move the front around to make sure callipers are aligned before torquing the securing bolts.

Avoids need for a 'carried forward' job list of tasks to be performed following removal from the stand.

For heavier maintenance, with the bike on a rear stand, then not too hard to remove the front clamp to use a paddock stand, but think it would be easier to remove a vice clamp rather than a roll in clamp with a bike already on the lift.

The clamp on Nasher's stand doesn't look anything like the clamps on the recent Clarke stands, as shown in Duke's post, and clamps the front wheel over a larger arc making things much more secure, so easy to see Nasher's problem as that clamp which only holds the bottom of the wheel would offer virtually no lateral stability at all.

Depending on the width of the stand the OP has, I'd check the Sealey clamp in the OP''s post as the image suggests insufficient clearance to turn the handle unless it's overhanging the side too the lift table.

Machine Mart do sell spares, so might be worth checking there, although no idea about pricing for a complete clamp.

 

It didn't hold the bike upright at all.

The lift isn't a Clarke one, but very similar.
It was very cheap on EBAY locally because it needed new seals in the RAM, which were @£5 and took me an hour to fit.
I've also welded brackets for Castors onto the end that had fixed wheels so I can move it about in all directions.

I've no idea how old it is, but was previously owned by a guy who used it commercially to build custom Harleys.
It has some additional holes in as he made his own frames and bolted a jig down to it to weld them up.
So it's semi retired in my hands.

 

Did you need to remove all the flame and skull stickers, or have you just photoshopped them out for our benefit?

 

Strangely it didn't have any, possibly because no sticker would ever stay put on a 1/8" layer of various shite that was all over it.