Hobby Creek, which offers a modular hose third hand setup with USA-made base, has a Kickstarter fundraising campaign ending this week, for a smaller but still highly versatile model – the Mini Hand.
The Mini Hand is smaller, and equipped standard with 2 arms instead of 4, which should be enough for a lot of workholding needs. But it also has a couple of handy features that increase its versatility.
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First, the base is lined on the bottom with something that Hobby Creek calls Suction Tape, allowing it to stock to a range of non-porous work surfaces, such as metal, plastic, glass, and certain workbench and countertops materials.
They’re offering the Mini Hand in a range of anodized colors.
If you need greater stability, or are working on a porous surface to which the Mini Hands won’t stick, you can just clamp it down at the middle. There are also mounting holes for more permanent installations, as you’ll see below.
Hobby Creek has also come out with a couple of new optional attachments, such as a universal holder for things like small flashlights, and a USB-powered mini fume extractor fan.
This gif shows all of the kinds of ways you can mount the Mini Hand to different work surfaces.
And this one shows off the new optional clamping strap attachment.
Price: $25 pledge for one, $90 for a 5-pack
The Mini Hand, with 2 arms and a suction tape base, is currently available as a Kickstarter pledge reward. The Mini Hand is expected to ship in March 2016, and is expected to be priced at $30.
It’s unclear as to whether these bases are made in the USA as with the full-sized third hand.
Hobby Creek currently manufactures the full-size third hand, and there’s also another new larger version coming out, for standalone use or attachment to certain PanaVise vises for added versatility.
More Info(via Kickstarter)
There have been some letdowns on Kickstarter, with backers of other projects never receiving the products they expected as their pledge rewards. Hobby Creek is a new company, but they’ve been shipping third hands to numerous retailers, and come out with a new product. We have high confidence in their ability to bring the Mini Hand to market. They’re currently $2,200 away from their $20,000 goal.
The campaign ends 12pm ET on Feb 26, 2016.
Here’s the Kickstarter promo video.
Here’s a look at their larger third hand system, which you can buy now from Amazon:
Hilton says
Feb 18, 2016 at 9:13 amThis certainly looks like it’s worth getting.
Thankfully pay day is just before the cutoff so I’ll probably jump in.
Shot!
Benjamen says
Feb 18, 2016 at 9:21 amSuction tape? Holy cow, forget the helping hands. That stuff looks awesome!
You can buy just the tape:
https://www.inventables.com/technologies/suction-cup-tape
or
http://www.amazon.com/Sewell-Direct-AirStick-Microsuction-250mmx300mm/dp/B00ITX9OU2
Only $1765 for a 30 meter roll.
Stuart says
Feb 18, 2016 at 9:33 amAgreed!
I wonder what someone could do with a meter-wide sheet of the stuff, let alone 30 meters of it, outside of cutting it into smaller pieces.
Nathan says
Feb 18, 2016 at 9:29 amnice find
Bret says
Feb 18, 2016 at 2:20 pmYou can make your own and build it exactly how you want it:
http://www.instructables.com/id/Third-Hand-A-multi-use-helping-hand-for-electro/
Kurt says
Feb 18, 2016 at 2:49 pmYou can make it even cheaper by using copper ground wire, #4 or #6 instead of the coolant nozzles. If you use a torch, it will hold up better too.
DM says
Feb 24, 2016 at 11:12 pmKickstarter is such a scam! That’s just loc-line with alligator clips!