Clam plate wobble issue?

[DR.SPECKLER]

Mine feels tight and there is no play in the plate shaft or auger but can feel my plate and handles rock around while drilling ice or running in air.more like the chuck shaft is bent a tad but it’s cutting great and it drills straight holes.but i cant start out slow or my auger walks.i just hit the trigger fully and it pulls and cuts so easy.

[VTMatt]

The handle wobbles because the auger cant wobble because the blades biting into the ice hold it relatively stationary.  Sounds like the bearing is pressed in crooked.  The way the clam plate is made makes it hard for the bearings to run perpindicular with the handles etc etc...

[NateD]

Bikini ice fishing team? 

[Iceicemike]

Well turned in enough cans. Got the clam plate coming.
Wobble wobble lol
Hoping it works out

[lefty2053]

Well turned in enough cans. Got the clam plate coming.
Wobble wobble lol
Hoping it works out

Hoping you get a good one. The wobble shouldn't deter anyone from buying one just because mine was horrible.

[TNT5859]

Still waiting for ice here, and can not wait to try it out. Any of you guys get a chance to try out the Clam plate with the  Ridgid?


I did end of getting a hold of Clam and they assured me it would work on the ice and I have nothing to worry about. I sure hope this is true, but after reading some of your experiences I am weary.

[3300]

the drill you use has nothing to do with the plate/shaft wobble. other than the plate doesn't fit the drill.

i returned mine. didn't care for the phone call with clam and their attitude and calling us bashers while all we wanted was for them to make right on their product. i thought about trying more plates at stores until i found a straight one, but after thinking about and trying to get clam to step up and take care of it and they wouldn't just send a straight shaft, i decided enough was enough. to much effort and time for some thing not needed at all.
i also didn't appreciate how they treated lefty at all. anyone who reached out to them got shot down on this subject.

and then then the videos of their plate with their extension running perfectly straight as it should be and then lefty's and mine being a 2 inch wobble and them being ok with that. some thing is wrong with them. they are out of spec big time.

after talking with frank who sharpens nils (sponsor) here and he explained he doesn't even need the aux handle to turn 8 inch nils helped me decide and all of the videos of folks not using one for their 8" made it easier to make the right choice. i am stepping up from a 6 to 8 inch auger and had concern's at first and bought the plate.
it's just aggravation and money wasted and more bulk and weight and harder to protect the drill and battery sitting a drill on top of a plate. it is also not designed to work with drills that have pressure switches on the handle. then there is the trigger issue/mod they admitted to doing for themselves, but not for us was the icing on the cake. i took the time and effort to make the trigger decent. i took the parts off before boxing it back up to return it to dicks sports.

been using ridgid brand tools for plenty of years to know how to use them and the aux handle design is the same as all of their gen4 and up.

people are using the aux handle to fit opposite of the drill handle and liking it better than the 90 degree position. so it feels more like a power head auger set up.

best of luck if you keep yours. watch out if your auger bit walks.

[VTMatt]

the drill you use has nothing to do with the plate/shaft wobble. other than the plate doesn't fit the drill.

i returned mine. didn't care for the phone call with clam and their attitude and calling us bashers while all we wanted was for them to make right on their product. i thought about trying more plates at stores until i found a straight one, but after thinking about and trying to get clam to step up and take care of it and they wouldn't just send a straight shaft, i decided enough was enough. to much effort and time for some thing not needed at all.
i also didn't appreciate how they treated lefty at all. anyone who reached out to them got shot down on this subject.

and then then the videos of their plate with their extension running perfectly straight as it should be and then lefty's and mine being a 2 inch wobble and them being ok with that. some thing is wrong with them. they are out of spec big time.

after talking with frank who sharpens nils (sponsor) here and he explained he doesn't even need the aux handle to turn 8 inch nils helped me decide and all of the videos of folks not using one for their 8" made it easier to make the right choice. i am stepping up from a 6 to 8 inch auger and had concern's at first and bought the plate.
it's just aggravation and money wasted and more bulk and weight and harder to protect the drill and battery sitting a drill on top of a plate. it is also not designed to work with drills that have pressure switches on the handle. then there is the trigger issue/mod they admitted to doing for themselves, but not for us was the icing on the cake. i took the time and effort to make the trigger decent. i took the parts off before boxing it back up to return it to dicks sports.

been using ridgid brand tools for plenty of years to know how to use them and the aux handle design is the same as all of their gen4 and up.

people are using the aux handle to fit opposite of the drill handle and liking it better than the 90 degree position. so it feels more like a power head auger set up.

best of luck if you keep yours. watch out if your auger bit walks.

The shaft on your clam plate was not straight?  Trying to understand where your wobble comes from. Mine spins freely but I have no extension. Sounds like everyones extensions are to blame for the most part.  Did you happen to record your wobble? 

Wasnt the video that someone posted clearly showing the extension was bent? 

[TNT5859]

Thank you 3300

[3300]

The shaft on your clam plate was not straight?  Trying to understand where your wobble comes from. Mine spins freely but I have no extension. Sounds like everyones extensions are to blame for the most part.  Did you happen to record your wobble? 

Wasnt the video that someone posted clearly showing the extension was bent?

didn't see a bent extension video. it wouldn't surprise me tho. i did see one with the extension run smooth as butter and i saw lefty's. mine was like lefty's as far as the extreme amount of wobble not like the one running smooth as butter with very little to no wobble.

i do have videos of it, both with and with out the extension. i did it with no plate and was directly in the chuck and used several drills to rule out the drill having wobble.
the shaft is bent and looks like it was done where they grind the flats for the chuck to hold it. as if their grinder or what ever was holding it was off set.

if you have wobble and want to find out where it comes from, i think you'll find it's in the way they ground the flats. the round part of the shaft was true. you can place it on a flat surface to see it or run it in a drill to see it.

adding some thing that fits tight to a bent shaft will only amplify the wobble affect and that's what you see in some of the videos. also, their extension is way to big inside diameter for their output shaft so the extension sits offset while on it. this would be a different wobble as the entire length of the extension should have the same amount of wobble and not just the tip of it.

[Iceicemike]

My clam plate is out of round too.
Used to be die maker, I can throw on dial indicator.
Don't think it's going to hurt performance.  The shaft it self is not straight. Can see it. But the bearing itself had crap load of tolerance. Not is the weld. It's the bearing:races itself.
 
I used my square and adjusted drill to move the shaft straight as. Possible.
Went and drilled with 10 yr old lazer 8 inch. I don't see issues.

[3300]

i thought about swapping out the bearing with a sealed bearing from detroit ball bearing co, but the shaft was too far gone to take it to the next level.

the thing here is it will depend on what you bolt up to it if it wobbles enough to affect the cut or not.  for those who like their plate, i would guess they do not use the clam extension or they have a straight shaft that allows them to be able to use it as intended.
if you go straight up auger, then you should be ok if the auger floats on the bent shaft like mine does on the kovac icemaster 2 as lefty found out. using their extension on it does not float at all. i wanted to keep their extension inside of my auger full time, but i could not. so i am back to what i know works for me.

[VTMatt]

didn't see a bent extension video. it wouldn't surprise me tho. i did see one with the extension run smooth as butter and i saw lefty's. mine was like lefty's as far as the extreme amount of wobble not like the one running smooth as butter with very little to no wobble.

i do have videos of it, both with and with out the extension. i did it with no plate and was directly in the chuck and used several drills to rule out the drill having wobble.
the shaft is bent and looks like it was done where they grind the flats for the chuck to hold it. as if their grinder or what ever was holding it was off set.

if you have wobble and want to find out where it comes from, i think you'll find it's in the way they ground the flats. the round part of the shaft was true. you can place it on a flat surface to see it or run it in a drill to see it.

adding some thing that fits tight to a bent shaft will only amplify the wobble affect and that's what you see in some of the videos. also, their extension is way to big inside diameter for their output shaft so the extension sits offset while on it. this would be a different wobble as the entire length of the extension should have the same amount of wobble and not just the tip of it.

The flats are milled, and it would be really difficult to bend steel that badly in a mill or lathe.  If it is in fact bent, clam needs to replace it.  If the milled flats are not on center, it could cause runout, but the way the bearings work is that it would partislly eliminate runout from the top where the flats are. The issue has to be below the plate itself, where the bar is with the hole in it. That doesn't spin true when not hooked on to anything?

[Iceicemike]

Flats? Are we talking where drill chick grips?
The shaft is hardened and anodized. i tried drilling it.
Im sorry in production wise, i can see hogging off metal and being not perfectly straight. When you hardened a piece, the object takes different shape. Which to get it back to perfect, you need to leave stock(material) on to get that. Which is another process. If you want that much perfection your going to pay.

[VTMatt]

Flats? Are we talking where drill chick grips?
The shaft is hardened and anodized. i tried drilling it.
Im sorry in production wise, i can see hogging off metal and being not perfectly straight. When you hardened a piece, the object takes different shape. Which to get it back to perfect, you need to leave stock(material) on to get that. Which is another process. If you want that much perfection your going to pay.

I doubt it's anodized. It would make no sense to anodize it, even if the manufacturer could, it doesn't work the same as aluminum anodizing.  Waste of money if they did that. 

My guess is it's heat treated and then sand blasted, which gives it that finished look.  Heat treating in my experience for something this thick would not warp so bad that the naked eye could see how bent it is.  I used to make dies and had to flame harden and oven harden the dies
 The dies only ever moved maybe .0005".
 A piece of paper is .003".  Not saying whatever metal they're using is not unstable, just highly unlikely that it bent that much from heat treating.

[Iceicemike]

true that on sand blasting.
.0005? Ok?? To get that you need grinding! You can fart on it and it will move that much.

[VTMatt]

true that on sand blasting.
.0005? Ok?? To get that you need grinding! You can fart on it and it will move that much.

I never had issues holding .0003-.0005 tolerances on things below 58 HRC.  58-62 was a little tricky. The difference between 58 and 60 sometimes felt like going from aluminum to chrome plating...  The dies were for 25-100 ton forging presses so they were deinitely overtoleranced. If i still worked there I would bring the shaft right in and hit it with their material laser to find out what it was made of, then find out how hard it actually was.  I'm guessing only 35ish HRC.

[VTMatt]

I just used my Ion extension with an 8" Lazer on my clam plate. Wobbled pretty bad because the connections have too much slop.  The 8" directly to the clam plate has almost no wobble. Guess I will make my own extension!

[DR.SPECKLER]

Ive been running my octane/clam plate with 8” mora and cut about 75 holes so far.yeah it wobbles but it also cuts ice so dam fast.

[TNT5859]

Ive been running my octane/clam plate with 8” mora and cut about 75 holes so far.yeah it wobbles but it also cuts ice so dam fast.

Do you have any trouble getting it started ( as far as auger walking) or does it start cutting right way?

[DR.SPECKLER]

It just cuts.once in awhile if you start to slow it will walk.i just start another hole when it does.its best just to put drill to ice and pull the trigger fully auger grabs and shreds ice doing this.starting out slow does not work with my 8” mora.its the moras shaver blades that make it walk.that been my method so far.its walked maybe 5 times out of 75.i let other guys cut holes with it to.no problems.

[TNT5859]

Good to hear. Thank you.

[Iceicemike]

Mine wobbles in air. Not dramatic imo
 Using 8 inch lazer. No issues today did I don't how many holes. Worked awsome! Right when I was building my left arm up from hand drilling lol

[RyanW]

Mine wobbles in air. Not dramatic imo
 Using 8 inch lazer. No issues today did I don't how many holes. Worked awsome! Right when I was building my left arm up from hand drilling lol

“Hand drilling”....is that what they call it now a days?...... 

I’ve had my clam plate since last year and there has always been a very slight wobble. I notice the wobble points on mine is where the bolt goes through to connect the clam shaft to the auger. There is just a little bit of play because the shaft is a smaller diameter than the inside of the auger tube. I got the clam extension for Christmas this year  and used it today for the first time. I did notice a very slight walk but I just pulled the trigger and let her rip. Still worked great. Mind you I was only on 6” of ice but it wasn’t anything out of the ordinary from what I remember from last season (sans extension).

It sucks that people are having issues with these things. Last season they seemed to a gift from above and this season the tone has changed significantly. After reading this thread I’m still not 100% sure what the actually issue is because I don’t seem to be having those issues. Is it the plate shaft or the the extensions? Bearings or tolerances? I don’t know. Just when I thought that clam actually had one quality consistent product they go and throw a wrench in the cogs.

[big-fat-john]

Sorry to hijack, but I have the same wobble issue, plus another, while testing it to cut 2ft of air at home.  I havent drilled through ice with it yet, but I will tonight.

My primary concern is where the long part of trigger arm screws into the short part that has the small lever/plate pushes the drill. It wobbles here and it is not tight. I have about 1/8th inch space between the point where the two arms are connected. I tried to tighten and untighten them with no luck. Is this normal? TIA.

[Kevin23]

Sorry to hijack, but I have the same wobble issue, plus another, while testing it to cut 2ft of air at home.  I havent drilled through ice with it yet, but I will tonight.

My primary concern is where the long part of trigger arm screws into the short part that has the small lever/plate pushes the drill. It wobbles here and it is not tight. I have about 1/8th inch space between the point where the two arms are connected. I tried to tighten and untighten them with no luck. Is this normal? TIA.

Mine had the same gap, I found a rubber washer in the junk drawer and put it on there to tighten it up. Doubt it hurts anything, but I wanted it snug.

[3300]

could go to a hardware store and bring the bolt and find nylon washers to add to the shoulder of the bolt, but yes it is not built well.

[big-fat-john]

Thanks guys. I'm tempted to put the torch to the nylon nut just to get it off. I'd just buy another from the hardware store and replace it. I will agree, that it's not made well. Tolerances arent tight at all. Good thing I got it on sale.

[RickWakeman]

I just received a clam plate and after putting it together with the clam extension, there is almost no wobble when spinning it in the air. No auger yet to try in the ice.

I paired it with Ryobi drill. Is there any issue with putting the trigger actuator assembly in the same channel as the drill handle holder? It seems to activate the trigger perfectly that way. Otherwise I think the piece that contacts the trigger would be too long.

[DR.SPECKLER]

Thats what i did.