Harbor Freight recently introduced the Bremen K-Body Parallel Clamp and I purchased a few to compare it to the Bessey clamps and give them a test drive to see how they perform.

I found that they are configured in a way that is very similar to a Bessey style k-body clamp. There are some quality tradeoffs IMHO but that is reflected in the price (see below), however, all the testing I performed measured performance against the Bessey and the Bremen performed VERY WELL, with close tolerances to the Bessey in all cases. So definitely worth a look.

This is a very new product with only 2 reviews on the website at the time of this writing so there is no track record on how they will perform over the long term. However, the good new is that Harbor Freight is offering a lifetime guarantee on the product which really mitigates the 'no track record' risk and makes these clamps quite attractive.

As of this writing, the 24" Harbor Freight clamps are being sold here in the Northeast for $34.99. Prices for the Bessey are all over the map. The lowest I found was at Menards for $43.97 + there is a 11% mail in rebate offer good thru 9/18/22. The caveat is that you have to redeem the rebate in person, so you have to live near a Menards. With the rebate, that brings the cost down to $39.13 - that's a great deal! As you look at other outlets, I found various prices for the Bessey all the way up to $59 at Home Depot. So it pays to look around and compare pricing.

A few people made the observation in the video at around the 8 minute mark that the pad on the upper jaw was flexing under pressure accounting for the gap identified. You have to watch that segment for this to make sense. The pad is actually hard plastic so I was finding it difficult to see how that would bulge under pressure but went back into the shop, well, my garage, to take another look. So in the video, I showed how the upper jaw on both clamps had an inward cant. So I arranged the clamps with the maple slab as in the video and began to tighten up. As I was tightening, the upper jaw was moving to parallel. If i put a square on the backside of the clamp, the jaw registered parallel. The part of the jaw contacting the wood was parallel to the wood. BUT, there was still a slight gap in the lower jaw as in the video. What I found was when I put a square across the length of the lower pad on the upper jaw, there was a slight (very slight) hollow, so that the upper and lower tips were protruding ever so slightly beyond the mid portion and it's that tip that the square registered to in the video accounting for the gap. Really appreciate the feedback from the group for pointing that out and getting me to take another look! BTW, as in the video, the gap was visible in both clamps and after my latest check, they both had a hollow, although, it seemed slightly less with the Bessey. These hollows were very, very slight.