Snap Wedge Shims – Clampack 16

Anyone who has fitted a door frame knows the problem: the gap is never quite what the drawing said it would be. These snap wedge shims are made for exactly that. They’re a tapered plastic packer with scored break lines, so you can snap off the length you need and drive it into the gap. This clampack of 16 gives you enough to do a full opening without a trip back to the van.

A snap wedge shim is a simple thing, which is the point. Plastic doesn’t rot, doesn’t swell if the site gets damp, and doesn’t compress under load the way softwood offcuts sometimes do. If you’ve ever packed behind a window frame with bits of timber and then watched them shrink a year later, you’ll see the appeal. Plastic stays put and holds its thickness.

Using Snap Wedge Shims for Packing and Levelling

The tapered profile is what makes them useful. Slide two wedges in from opposite sides and you can fine-tune the packing thickness by feel, rather than guessing at a single fixed size. It’s quicker than hunting through a bag of mixed packers, and it gives you a bit more control when you’re trying to get a frame plumb to the nearest millimetre.

They suit a wide spread of jobs. Door frames and lining, window and patio door installs, kitchen units, worktops, skirting, stair stringers, sanitaryware, and anywhere something needs lifting off a floor or holding off a wall. Joiners, kitchen fitters, window installers and general builders will all find a use for them, and most will tell you they never have enough.

Snapping to the Right Size

The break lines mean you can tear a wedge down to a short tab for a tight gap, or leave it long for a wider one. No saw, no knife, no sawdust. You do lose the satisfaction of cutting something, but you’ll get over it. Because the wedge is graduated, you can also trim the thin end back once it’s driven home, so nothing is left poking out past the finish line.

Once the frame is plumb and level, the shim can be fixed through, or left in place under a fixing so the load transfers through the packer and into the structure. Being plastic, it also resists the sort of crushing you get from over-tightening a frame screw, which keeps the opening square after fixing.

Clampack of 16

Supplied as a clampack of 16, they’re easy to keep in a tool bag or van drawer without everything escaping and ending up loose in the bottom. Sixteen covers a typical door set or a couple of windows, and if you’re doing a whole run of units you’ll want a few packs in hand. Buying them in bulk through Discount Trade Supplies keeps the cost per job down, which matters when you consider how many of these end up buried behind plasterboard.

If you’re after reliable snap wedge shims that don’t need cutting, don’t rot and don’t cost much, these do the job. They’re not glamorous, but a frame that’s been packed properly is a frame that opens and closes properly, and that’s worth a few quid.