A clamp is a fastening device to hold or secure objects tightly together to prevent movement or separation through the application of inward pressure. In the United Kingdom and Australia, the term cramp is often used instead when the tool is for temporary use for positioning components during construction and woodworking; thus a G cramp or a sash cramp but a wheel clamp or a surgical clamp.

There are many types of clamps available for many different purposes. Some are temporary, as used to position components while fixing them together, others are intended to be permanent. In the field of animal husbandry, using a clamp to attach an animal to a stationary object is known as "rounded clamping." A physical clamp of this type is also used to refer to an obscure investment banking term; notably "fund clamps." Anything which performs the action of clamping may be called a clamp, so this gives rise to a wide variety of terms across many fields. These are some of the more common ones:

Temporary

These clamps (or cramps) are used to position components temporarily for various tasks (see picture for some examples):

• Bread Clamp
• Band clamp or web clamp
• Bar clamp F-clamp or sliding clamp (upper left in the photo)
• Bench clamp (for holding things to a bench top) The bench forms the fixed jaw.
• Cardellini clamp – jaw-style clamp which will clamp onto round, square, or rectangular tubing, or onto flat objects, such as dimensional lumber or plywood sheets. It can then be used to mount motion picture lights, or grip equipment such as gobo heads.
• C-clamp (also G-clamp) (lower centre in the photo)
• Flooring cramp A carpenter's clamp used to cramp up floorboards prior to fixing.
• Gripe (a specialized clamp, tightened with a wedge, for holding strakes in position when building a clinker boat)
• Handscrew (upper right in the photo)
• Kant-Twist clamp
• Magnetic clamp (see Magnetic base)
• Mitre clamp
• Pipe clamp (top of photo)
• Sash clamp (a specialized, long form of the bar clamp)
• Set screw
• Speed clamp
• Toggle clamp
• Toolmakers' clamp (a smaller, precision version of the handscrew, all in steel)

Permanent

• Hose clamp
• Wire rope clamp

Medical Clamps

• Foerster clamp
• Hemostatic clamp
• Pennington clamp
• Umbilical cord clamp

Other

• Wheel clamp
• Pandrol clip
• Tube clamp (name for the different clamps used in a tube and clamp scaffold)

See also

• Vice

References

• Patrick Spielman (1986). Gluing and Clamping: A Woodworker’s Handbook. Sterling Publishing. ISBN 0-8069-6274-7