Review on 🔧 Enhance Your Soldering Experience with Toolour Helping Hands Third Hand by Kevin Pirlet

After using this blue quad (I just coined the term) for weeks including a horrible experience a few minutes ago I thought I'd write a review by reading it blown up because of its shortcomings. But I believe you deserve to read an honest and honest review, unbiased by my disappointment. Luckily I can. I bought this handheld tool to use primarily for soldering. My last similar tool broke down holding two pieces in two hands, solder and a soldering iron just wouldn't cut. I like the clamp method. I often work in the living room and would like to be able to temporarily attach it to the coffee table and take it off again when I'm done. I have a vise that attaches with a clamp, and the handwheel that this device uses to tighten the clamp is much more convenient than the one on my vise. The four levers are very flexible, as one would expect given their purpose. The strength of the hands was unexpected. They can hold a surprisingly large weight when hands are positioned correctly, i.e. under load. Don't expect to be able to hold the same heavy weight with alligator clips and side arms. The strength of the levers comes with some stiffness, and that's my biggest issue with them. I wanted to use them for soldering. Soldering components onto PCBs works well, even large PCBs can be held securely, albeit with some wobble when pressed. The problem occurs when I'm trying to solder two wires together, which is exactly the task I bought this thing to help me with. The rigidity of the levers makes it nearly impossible to align the ends of the two wires so that the stripped ends overlap and touch, which is necessary for a solder joint. I bring them closer and try to make a small adjustment but the arms are so stiff that it takes some effort to move them and when they do they seem to break and go too far. I couldn't fine-tune without using my fingers to operate the levers, but that negates the benefit this thing was supposed to offer and frees my hands from holding the parts to be soldered so I can hold the soldering iron and solder. I deduct a star for that. One design option that eludes me is the way the arms attach to the table clamp. The arms are plastic with a threaded tip and the clip clamp is metal with a threaded hole. The thread has a fine pitch, 18 threads per inch. I'm an electrical engineer with a mechanical inclination and had to be very careful not to damage the threads. I can imagine many people crossing the threads and tearing them and trying to twist their hands. I can't say that this device is useless, it's just that it's not as useful for a specific task as I had hoped. So if you need help holding something other than the two solder wires I'd recommend this, but for soldering I'd suggest getting one of the other wires with metal rods instead.