Best Clamping methods

[dpeterson3]

I have tried to get into the world of scratch building for a few years now with limited success. Lately, I have been playing with soldering some old copper wire into shapes for practice and having fun with it. I am realizing that my biggest problem is holding the workpiece in place while I am trying to solder it. What is the best method for doing this? I have seen people take sheet steel and make a magnetic table for clamping. Has anyone here tried that? Does it work well?

Thanks in advance

 

[Artieiii]

I have one of these "helping hands" I got at radio-shack.
http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=3928375
It has a holder for your solder iron, sponge to clean the solder tip, magnifier lens and alligator clips to hold your work. It's cheaply made but functions well.
-Art

 

[hamltnblue]

I have one of those but without the magnifying glass and sponge. Works great.

 

[dpeterson3]

I have one to I use for circuit work all the time. It just doesn't cut it for larger work pieces (the corners of ho structures) or even some of the simple wire tacking I was doing for practice. I was building a small marble roller coaster as it is simple and requires a bit structural soldering. I had to build a jig using a 2x4 and some finish nails. There has to be a better way. I want to eventually build bridges for my layout, so I am thinking there must be a better way to hold small parts while fastening them together.

 

[Cjcrescent]

Clothes pins, the wooden ones, are good. You can also reverse the wooden parts so the flat part that you would squeeze to open them, becomes the clamping part. This also allows you to cut down the flat part to make clamps of different widths. There are also hemostats, a surgical clamp, available in several different sizes. The clamps described are good for clamping things together when they are flat.

For 90` clamping, magnets and a flat plate are good. There are also some clamps made of thick plastic with magnets embedded in them that are two part, and shaped like an "L". One part has the magnets on the inside of the "L", and the other half has the magnets on the outside of the "L". The parts to be clamped are placed on one side of the "L" and the other part of this clamp is placed on the other side of the material. These two clamps hold the parts in perfect 90` angles.

I believe I've seen the magnetic clamps in the micro-mark catalog.

 

[rlundy90]

A pin vise like this works very well for holding odd shaped objects. I use mine all the time.
http://www.leevalley.com/en/wood/page.aspx?p=31175&cat=1,41659,41667