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The Kee Klamp, Part 1

By Rain Noe - December 20, 2011

in Object Culture

Buffalo-based Kee Safety Inc. produces a line of very basic railings, barriers and perimeter protection, all held together with some variation on the Kee Klamp. The latter is just a humble pipe fitting, available in both aluminum and less-expensive iron, with an obvious appeal: Armed with nothing more than a hex key, a builder tightens a single set screw in the clamp that can subsequently support up to 2,000 pounds. An adult with access to common steel pipes can then operate like a kid with a Lego set.

Steel pipe is an inherently efficient structural component. It is strong, has no sharp corners, and is readily available worldwide. The difficulty in using steel pipe to form structures arises when joining. Threaded pipe must be supplied in set lengths making for zero flexibility in installation. Welding is labor intensive, requires a highly skilled workforce, and specialized equipment.

The answer is KEE KLAMP components. The underlying principle is simple but highly effective: use slip-on components to create versatile and rigid tubular structures....

The Kee Klamp comes in scores of varieties to deal with different angles, coupling situations and pipe diameters. Next we'll look at what some DIY'ers have been using the stuff for.

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mark h

12 years ago

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It would be nice to see a comparison of this with the less cosmetic (but presumably more affordable) Unistrut (at the .us domain). Certainly the Kee clamps, 80/20, and Unistrut all do similar things (clamp beam elements together) but in my mind I've seen them predominantly in commercial, lab/small scale, and industrial applications respectively.
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emanster provolone

12 years ago

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Yes, I'm glad you're covering this. We use a lot of 80/20 and extruded alum. products like this. Its easy to model, order and asseble and can often be closed out so that you dont see the construction. I think these modular building systems have enormous potential and are often overlooked by those in the design community. Why reinvent the wheel, when someone has already gone to the trouble to design an all inclusive modular building system!
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dave

12 years ago

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I've been interested in this stuff for a while, I didn't know it came in different diameters though. British-Israeli designer Ron Arad made extensive use of Kee Klamp in the 1980s for shop fittings, I think they might have sanded and chromed some of the pipes too.
There is a scandanavian toy called quadro which is a similar-ish set of joints in plastic with grp pipes, I have played around with it as a lightweight furniture system but it's not as flexible as kee klamp or grid beam.
If you look at the way the quadro joints go together you can see that there is some potential to design joints for this system that would enable you to nest two different diameter pipes inside each other.
looking forward to part 2.
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