Third hand with small hooks for rigging work
The cast-iron foot was de-rusted and a proper seat for the bar-clamp had to be filed � I could not find a way to clamp the piece to the table of my milling machine. The foot then was primed and painted in my favourite �bottle green� (RAL 6007).
Third hand with small clamps in steel
Working predominantly in small scales with tiny parts, I sized the tool appropriately. The main bar is 6 mm steel and the two pillars are 10 mm aluminium. I actually prefer steel, but in this case working with aluminium was faster on my small machines. The arbors for all the clamps are 4 mm steel rod. The diameter of 4 mm was chosen, as the alligator-clamps have sleeves that are meant to be pushed over 4 mm-banana-plugs.
Third hand with alligator clamps
Thinking about the likely kind of applications, I made a pair of small sprung clamps from steel, a pair of larger toolmaker-style clamps (excellent idea by Michael, btw) in aluminium to be used for soldering, a pair of small hooks in 0.5 mm piano-wire for rigging tasks, and a pair of collect-chucks.
Third hand with toolmakers-style clamps in aluminium
The collet-chucks are a commercial products from China with ten collets that clamp from 0 to 3.2 mm. I thought this might be a good idea for clamping wires and perhaps ropes safely without distortion or marring. They were so cheap at 1.50� for a chuck with ten collets that there was no point in makimng them myself.
Third hand with collet chucks to hold wires etc.
I also plan to make set of clamps from bakelite for soldering, but have not received the material yet.
The thumb-screws are also bought-in, as I have local source here in Paris that sells them for one Euro a piece, which is not exactly cheap, but good value considering how much time I would have spent making them myself.
