Wooden hand screws are versatile, but they can be confounding to use. We'll help you eliminate frustration and show you a few tricks to get the most from these clamps.

The trick is to always hold the top handle in your left hand and the bottom handle in your right hand. When you tighten the clamp, you only spin the handle in your right hand, which is much easier to control than spinning both handles. Plus, if you hold the clamp like this on a consistent basis, you build muscle memory and soon you won’t even have to think about which direction to turn the clamp to get it to tighten or loosen. I struggled with these clamps for years until I realized that I wasn’t holding the clamp consistently, so I never knew which direction would tighten or loosen the clamp.