Blind clamps for butt-welds: like intergrips or clecos.

[gasket999]

Hi,

I've seen Intergrips and Clicos on the Eastwood website here. The intergrips look fantastic for butt-welding in 'invisible' repair panels (thinking car bodywork), but you need access to the reverse to use them. The Clicos look great and work 'blind' where you can't access the reverse, but are only good for lap-welds.

Is it possible to get a fastner that will hold a repair panel without the need to access the reverse? A hypothetical example would be if you wanted to cut out and replace a section of a sealed vessel.

Many thanks.

 

[hotrodder]

Clecos can be used for butt welds with no access to the back- use two clecos and a small offcut to bridge the joint, the offcut(s) will also stop you from dropping the patch panel through the hole. Using a couple of small magnets (if playing with steel), sticky tape (if talking smallish, light patches) or tacking an offcut to the patch panel saves having to fill the cleco holes after

 

[rikrobson]

Use magnets!!!

if you ca get an old hard dive there are small powerful magnets inside.
f few of them will hold a panel in place.
you can also get neodymium magnets off ebay for a small price. beware thoough when i say powerful i mean powerful!!!

 

[excossack]

I use hard drive magnets as they are nice and flat and quite strong.