Helping Third Hand Soldering Station Vise – Stable Hands Free Job Holder 3rd Hand Solder Fingers – Heavy Duty Steel Base – 8 Heat Shrink Tubes – Metal Goosenecks & Alligator Clips – VS339

I can't really say more than that - it works as advertised.PROS: Solid and weighty base, but light enough to transport easily. Arms are flexible enough to move but strong enough to hold most things in position. Clips are tight but not too tight.CONS: None so far. My tool included a bag of eight pieces of heat shrink tubing - they were even yellow to match the base color - so I didn't encounter the problem of boards getting scratched or damaged.If you've never used a tool like this before, a couple of things to remember.1) If you bend the arms so they're curved well away from the base and try to hold a heavy item with them, it will tip over. The laws of physics apply here as they do anywhere else.2) If you need to reposition the arms , DO NOT do it by grabbing the alligator clips, and especially not with the item still in the clips.. They can and will bend or break, simply because of the way they're designed. (The clips are a common design, so the problem is not unique to this tool.)3) Heat shrink tubing on the alligator clips will indeed help prevent damage to items being held, but bear in mind that putting the tubing on will also slightly decrease the thickness of items the clips can hold. It's a very small amount, but worth remembering depending on the type of work and items you work on.First night I had this, ended up repairing a mouse and doing some desoldering work on two small PCBs. The tool really does live up to the name Helping Hands. Next up is replacing the micro USB port on my son's keyboard.Well worth the money - a good investment for any home or workbench!

Just got mine today and it is great! My boss likes it so much he has me order another. Very handy for soldering and at this price you could not make it yourself really when you consider labor and parts. The base is sturdy and just the right size. I love it when I find something useful and well made and this is both! I added some heat shrink to the clips to keep them from biting the wires. There is room for more holders, you could easily machine and add more if you need to, I think this will work perfectly for my purposes.UPDATE: Ordered a 2nd for the techs and they loved it. Very handy! I just used mine to solder some very tiny wires and it saved me so much time. Best buy of this year for me! Worth every penny and then some.

Works good but the alligator clips are sharp and they easily damage wire insulation or circuit boards. I put heat shrink tubing over the teeth. The clips also bend easily. The good part is that the base is heavy and the flex tube is strong.

All you have to do is just open the package and this is ready to use. The base which I was worried about from the pictures is actually very sturdy and nicely painted. Arms where very useful and bendable so you can configure for your work. The little cutout/indentation on the bottom of the base is useful as well - catching parts so they don't get away from you, solder, etc. The item is just the right size for what I need which is soldering small electronics. Clips are nice, good springs on them, rotate well. The feet on the bottom as very big so it very stable and has rubber so that it does not slide around. The only thing I do have a concern would be the plastic knurled rotational knobs for the clips not sure if in the future they will either wear out or just warp over the years after getting heated up from soldering. You can't go wrong with it and if the price drops a little with keeping the quality the same then it would be a good deal.

Been using this for my small & large soldering tasks for ~5 years now. Haven't felt the need to get a new one yet, so that's good, but it's not perfect.If you plan to grip PVC or Silicone sheathed wires to solder, you will need to wrap some sturdy high-temperature heat shrink around those teeth, or the teeth will invariably slice neat little slits in your wires sheathing. The grip of these guys are pretty strong also, so keep in mind if you're heating wires near the grippers, your wire sheathing will likely flatten out under the grippers.Regarding the actual arms, they're actually pretty nice. You have to put in a pretty good amount of force to maneuver them exactly how you want them, but that's probably helping to make sure it stays there once you move them. It's a little difficult that the grippers are fixed straight out the ends of the arms. If they were on clamping ball ends so you could rotate the gripper on the end of the arm, it would give so much more flexibility here. Anyways, I make due with it for my projects, so not a major complaint or anything.Once they're positioned in place, they do have a tiny bit of "slop" or "backlash." I think it's increased slightly over the years, but it can be 1-2 mm of almost free movement. It helps to re-tighten the screws on the base holding the arms in, but it's still sorta a botherence.I love the little pocket in the middle of the stand to keep small parts from rolling or being blown away. This is really an under-rated feature.The base is heavy and stable, and the dense foam rubber feet on the bottom are pretty grippy.P.S. IF YOU'RE THINKING ABOUT GETTING HELPING HANDS WITH MAGNETIC ATTACHING ARMS, DON'T! Get ones like these with the arms rigidly fixed to the base. My lab at work just got some helping hands with magnetic arms that attach to the base from a different brand on Amazon. They're so unhelpful. Would not recommend anyone to get those regardless of the use-case.

I bought this for my husband to build model airplanes and it works great. He has been using it almost a year and the base is very sturdy. the clamps hold very small pieces really well and having 4 arms is extremely useful. I would really recommend. I have also used this to fix a knot in a necklace and it was able to hold a fine chain in place while I worked the knot out. Great Product