Trivial Tricks.

[Dennis]

Here are some items I have learned to keep within reach. They are quite trivial in themselves, but keep me organised.

A Box Of Pins.

Some of my soldering blocks and boards are soft enough to accept pins, So I am often able to keep parts in contact during soldering, with just a few pins, strategically placed.

Stainless Steel Binding Wire.

Binding wire is quite maddening, but the best of the bunch, so to speak is made of stainless steel. It is supplied soft, but can be further softened by annealing. Its advantage is that it rarely breaks in use and if dropped into your pickle, will not turn silver pink. I use 0.3mm wire, twisted into two-ply.

A washing up sponge.

A washing up sponge lined with Scotchbrite, is not easily lost, so wherever I toss it after brightening my solder strip, it will be ready and present for duty.

BluTack.

Picking up gemstones and other small objects with tweezers is a sure way of pinging them into oblivion, so I keep a cone of BluTack where I can easily find it. Here it is on the top of my control box.

Glue Kit And Kitchen Roll

The twin syringe for epoxy glue can make a filthy mess and it gets worse as it gets older, so I find it essential to have the whole kit ready for use: a sheet of paper, some offcuts of plastic packaging to mix on, some coffee stirrers for mixing it thoroughly enough, saved broken saw blades to apply it with and finally a kitchen roll to deal with any spills.

What tricks do you have? Dennis.

[SteveLAO]

Dennis,
Interesting that you use blu tak as your "diamond magnet"

In my days as a stone buyer I used to use what they called in the trade a "grolly" (sometimes known as a "bogey" due to its colour and consistency!!) which was actually just a lump of beeswax. You could roll it down into a cone shape with such a fine point that would pick up 0.001ct diamonds and yet wasn't as sticky as blu tak and bits didn't come off. I understand that the setters in the west end (of London) still use grollys!! Try it!

[CJ57]

I found a use for all those useless CDs that come in the papers or don't record properly. They can't be recycled as they are both plastic and metal and there are just so many bird scarers you can use!! They make good clean palettes for mixing the epoxy on instead of all the bits of paper and are multi use

[Goldsmith]

I won't repeat my suggestions for the soldering clamps, but I can mention the fact that dental tools are a useful addition to the bench tool kits. I bought a set like this one available on Amazon; http://www.amazon.co.uk/Piece-Stainless-Steel-Wax-Carving/dp/B000V6MTDO/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1386077173&sr=8-5&keywords=dental+tool+set , a set of 12 stainless steel tools for £6.80.
These stainless steel tools have a variety of uses as well as the wax carving they are sold as being for. Great for mixing and applying glues, and I also use one as a solder pick.

James