Make
Extra Hands
Extra Hands or Helping Hands are available from various places such as
hobby shops, hardware stores and electronics stores. They look like
they're all made by the same manufacturer but even if they're not, they're
all cheaply made. I've yet to see this tool in a high quality version.
While they are very useful there are three significant problems.
The first problem is that they're small. The idea is great but they
don't work well for larger objects. You could buy several of them but
that's not economical.
Making your own isn't difficult and you can make a dozen or so for about
$10.00. The alligator clips shown here were purchased from Lowes.
I paid for them, opened the package and went over to the wiring section to
find a soft wire that would fit inside the shank. In this case 6 gauge
copper wire was a snug fit. And the price was right at about $.025/ft.
The extra hands I made are fairly heavy duty. You can do the same
thing using smaller alligator clips with smaller gauge wire.
Other types of ends can be soldered to the wire such as lugs, binder
clips, etc. If you need the hands to be secured to the base then you
can buy the right size lug, solder it near the base of the wire, bend the
lug 90° and screw the assembly to a base.
Also see
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