Not F'ing Around 3rd Hand

So we can all agree that old-school soldering third hands suck, right?  And we can all agree that the cheap import “doc octopus” wigglyarm versions suck worse?

Yeah so sucking is no longer a requirement.

This design was intended to be machined out of aluminum but PETG ended up working just fine.  The idea is to use “magic arms” instead of floppy bits that suck, and to use hemostats instead of roach clips because it's not 1967 anymore.  The magic arms are like $18 ea off Amazon and the hemostats are like $30 a dozen (and you don't need a dozen).  

I also decided that a print-in-place geared grabber would add to the fun so I kludged that up in PrusaSlicer.  You can do the same or you can use your mad engineering skillz to beat me at my own game.

BILL OF MATERIALS

• 1 set ¼-20 knurled inserts. ($13)  Nearly every magic arm you will find is ¼-20 so feel the Imperial.
• 1 set cheap crappy hemostats ($15).  These give you a few different sizes and angles.  actually these give you three angles in small and large.
• QTY 2 cheap crappy magic arms ($18 ea).  You could do one?  You don't need three.  I sized this thing for 10" magic arms and lo and behold they work great.  You could go bigger you could go smaller you do you just make sure your magic arm thread and your knurled insert threads match.
• 1 assortment cheap reusable cable ties ($6).  You will use like four.  Don't worry they'll come in handy for other things.

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Print all parts.  When I'm serious about it I go like 3 shells thick and 25% gyroid infill.  I can thread it but more importantly it gives you something to grab onto with the threaded inserts.  I mostly go PETG but no reason ABS or PLA won't work.
2. Heat up threaded inserts and… insert them.  What's that?  You don't have a good way to do that?  Allow me to suggest a Yihua 8786D and this handy soldering caddy I designed that I'm not at all salty I don't get to enter into this contest.  Not at all.  Not in the slightest.
3. Seriously though you need two (or four) in the base, the idea being two are for the arms and two are so you can put your spare grabber-dabber/hemostat holder on a piece of ¼-20 bolt or all-thread that you screw up through the bottom.
4. You need one per hemostat holder, too.
5. And if you printed out a couple grabber-dabbers you need them there, too.
6. Loop the reusable cable ties through the hemostat holders.  They're handy for holding the hemostats against the holders, but they aren't essential unless you're doing big dumb multi-pair cable (I do a lot of big dumb multi-pair cable).  

TIPS

• The arms are going to want to walk unless you tighten them down, and the tighter you tighten them down the more likely they are to pull the inserts out of the base.  Pick your poison.  I've been using this thing for about 18 months and I've never had a problem so this is much ado about nothing.
• Yes I know NOW that PETG isn't recyclable don't worry I won't.
• I can't remember what the little inserts were for but dollars to donuts they're 4mm.  Probably to put some other silly thing on the base.
• The tray holds a surprising amount of stuff.  
• Forceps Fixture and Forceps Fixture V2 hold slightly differently, they don't take long to print out, pick your favorite before you put a threaded insert in 'em.