If you’re building a deck or replacing decking, you have probably found that it would be helpful to have a clamp to hold the deck boards in place while you attach them. You could spend $52 for a specialized decking clamp, but you probably already have at least one Irwin Quick-Grip bar clamp that you could modify in just a few minutes (if you don’t want to spend $5 on the conversion kit Irwin offers).

Just remove the yellow rubber cap from the fixed jaw (the end opposite the handle) and file down the plastic from the first 3/4″ so it looks like this:

Now the clamp jaw will fit between the deck boards, so you can use it to pull bent boards into alignment, like so:

When you’re done with your deck (if one ever really finishes building a deck), you can put the rubber cap back on the jaw and continue using your clamp like normal, and no one will be the wiser.