Third hand holding device, home made option.

[Andy Davies]

Hi folks I don’t know if this will help anyone but as a new comer to jewellery making it looks like the options for ‘third hand’ holding devices is a bit limited so I made my own.

I hard soldered a connector out of a terminal strip to a pair of cross-lock tweezers and then used some stainless-steel wire to make a little holding device that doesn’t suck all of the heat out of the joint.

It’s really useful to me as I can pick up the whole assembly and move it around, turn it upside-down without displacing the components. I can change the shape of the spring wire to push in any direction. I could have two or more connectors and additional wires if I wanted to hold multiple components.

I’m sure that the ‘old hands’ will simply place and solder as they go but for me this is a good option as I can place the component to see how it looks from the front and then flip it over and solder it from the back knowing that it won’t move.

It would probably be helpful for repairs to hold adjacent components. I think I bought these cross-lock tweezers from RS components about 30 years ago. I’ve made stand-alone holding devices but I like to hold the components together as one piece rather than two things pushed together that can become separated. I've only been making since mid January with only the help and advice from YouTube so don't beat me up too much if you can buy one of these out of a catalogue.

I have another option and if anyone is interested, if so I’ll add a picture below somewhere.

Anyway it works for me and I hope it helps someone.

Kind Regards . . . Andy

[china]

There are many commercial devices, eg third hands, titanium strips to fashion your holding items, tweezers etc, also home grown as you you have done my opinion is "whatever works"

[CJ57]

As Bob says yes there are many options and we’ve all made use of even household items if they worked. I used to use a darning mushroom for doming back in the penniless day!

I thought I’d share this from master silversmith James Miller. He was a great sharer of skills and the titanium strips were shown to have many uses to suit your needs. Sadly he passed recently but I had this filed away

[Andy Davies]

Thanks Caroline, I had to zoom in to be able to see the individual pictures but it's helpful.

The difference with my idea is that I'm only making one tiny point contact with the part where the heat is, as oposed to the two point contact, I'm sure that's not a huge advantage but it's a consideration to bare in mind.

Thank you for taking the time to sort out the picture and post it.

Regards . . Andy .