[taylorkh]

Recently Nils posted pictures of a third hand tool made from an old hammer head over on the TIG forum. So as not to hijack his thread I thought I would start one here so we could share ideas for third hand tools. Both of these were build from scrap which I picked up along the road while walking my dog. The joys of living down the road from a scrap recycler

The "feet" are terminated with blobs of aluminum bronze and the "beak" on this one with silicon bronze.

3rdhand1.jpg (158.26 KiB) Viewed 2132 times

On this one the long rod is made from a 1/4-20 bolt. The brass acorn nut could be replaced with a different end if necessary.

3rdhand2.jpg (197.96 KiB) Viewed 2132 times

I cleaned the rust from all of the pieces before welding. The beautiful heat coloration was totally unexpected as the parts were carbon steel.

Show us what you got

Ken

[TamJeff]

[CraigLam]

TamJeff, that third hand is totally cool. I could definitely see me using one of those. I could weld some scrap together for a weight and then weld an arm to it with a much stronger clamp or even a "C" clamp. I'm still waiting around for UPS to get here with my wheels. BTW, before I forget. HF is having a huge sale on March 8th, and one of the items up for sale is the "Auto Darkening" welding helmet. 39 bucks!! I've read the reviews, and they are very good. I was practicing my welds in the mini bike. I'm getting a lot better at it. An Auto Darkening would help tremendously. One trick I learned, is that when I flip the helmet down, I kind loose my place as to where the welding tip is. I just tap a little for light, and I can see where I'm at. I'm still gonna get an auto darkening helmet.

[TamJeff]

There is often times where I am having to balance a pipe nipple on another pipe at odd angles. I actually have a bunch of different kinds of third hands of sorts. I have been caught using string and masking tape as well and clamps clamped to other clamps. The practice used to be to get someone else to hold things in place but most people are too jittery and then they have to look away to avoid getting flashed, plus having to get them to stop what they are doing, explain how you need things held etc. My attention span is short when I get in a mad building frenzy, leftover from those piecework days. I don't like stopping momentum when things start flowing along.

Those plastic spring clamps were made by Vise-grip when they first came out with the quick grip series of bar clamps. Now everything has articulated tips and they are essentially useless for pipe and tube. I have 9 out of 10 of these left after 20 years or so, one of which got run over by the forklift. I can't use metal clamps on anodized unless I clamp them to a weld or future weld zone.

All your drops from pipe fab can usually be used for some type of fixture or test bend, or layout pattern. I have others made that hold tubes perfectly flush or centered with other parts of the weldment as well.

[Otto Nobedder]

It never ocurred to me, in the thread I posted on valve change-out. I used a broad assortment of "third-hand" tools to locate and fit those valves. I never once asked someone to "hold this here while I tack it". There are so many creative ways to jig/fixture your parts where you want them. Like Jeff, I find it's less interruption to my rhythm to just do it myself than interupt both my work and someone else's to get help with it.

Steve S

[TamJeff]

The rigging guy at our shop was always the designated 'holder.' I rarely had to use him and he would comment how machines were taking his job.

Last place I worked, the owner was one of those types that just had to be useful. A real mover and shaker type. Him helping was just bad news. He wasn't a fabricator of anything, albeit an extraordinary academic. One day I was building this rather large bow rail on a 36ft sport fisher, and I had it all jigged/clamped in place and was fitting the stanchions. He makes a beeline over to hold the stanchion for me after I assured him I didn't need help and I was in an awkward position and I shocked the crap out of him and the stanchion tube went flying across the shop. He turned 14 shades of purple and then ghost pale, did an about face and scurried to the safety of his office for at least 2 hours.

I know he thinks I did it ( I really didn't) on purpose, but he can't say he wasn't warned. AC, 250 amps, HF set at 100%. I mean you could actually hear it when it hit him. . .BBBVVVVVVVVVVVTTTT! Don't recall how he/I actually completed the circuit. I think he was holding on the grounded rail with one hand and then shoved the stanchion into my tungsten or something right as I hit the button.

[delraydella]

Ouch!

[delraydella]

One of my jobs in the shop is laminator. Whenever there is any kind of laminating to be done, everybody else disapears so I get to do it, especially if there is a curved surface involved. Normally on a flat surface , you would place boards between the formica and the surface to be laminated and just take away the boards to lay it down in place. It's not that easy on a curved surface, and it's a lot harder when you are the only one doing it. It's really easy to get out of line on the curve and the whole piece is screwed.

What i do on curves is clamp one end of the formica down tight in the exact spot i want it, lift up the free end, spray both sides with contact cement and then drop it down exactly in place.There's a waiting time for the contact cement to set after it's sprayed so the pieces have to be held away from each other for about the time it takes to smoke a cigarette (my old system of time until I quit about 7 years ago)

It's pretty low tech, but i use an old movie light stand with an adjustable extension arm to hold the sprayed side up while the glue sets.

[TamJeff]

Another simple 3rd hand, or finger at least. multiple 1/8" holes drilled through the handle, or same size as your most used or abundant filler rod. I have always had eighth around in some fashion and even a piece of tungsten would suffice. Either way, you get the idea. It traps things in two directions, as depicted in the photo. Something as simple as this has solved so many problems and will not cause an arc-out in the wrong place. Sometimes you don't want your fixtures to transfer the ground. especially when welding anodized. Anodized is begging for an easier ground than what is present at the joint.



I didn't build the rest of this contraption. I would have known enough to at least hide my starts/stops if they were to be so hideous.