Upgraded Helping Hands

One of the alligator clips on my helping hands got lost one day and I decided to improve my little helper. I made a new clip, but while I was at it, I also made an upgraded clip for holding bigger objects.

A while back I bought a big bag of alligator clips from Harbor Freight and I still have plenty left. These assortments go for about $3-4. I used a wire crimper to cut the nail and crimp the clips onto the nail. I used a roofing nail to fill the crimped end, because it's soft and easy to cut with wire cutters.

Assembly is pretty straightforward. You need to fill the center of the clips' crimp ends with something so the thumb/set screw on the helping hands won't crush them. I used a roofing nail, but you can use any kind of thick shank nail (as long as you can cut it).

I cut a short piece of the shank of the nail and inserted it into the alligator clip. I carefully overlapped the ends of the metal and crimped it down onto the nail's shank.

I had to remove the insulation from the crimped side. Again, I cut a short piece of the shank from the nail and inserted it into the alligator clip. These larger clips have interleaving teeth that have to be folded down neatly, so I used some needle-nosed pliers to crimp them onto the rod. Once everything is in place, you can trim the insulation and heat shrink it back in place.

The upgraded helpers are much more useful now. The bigger clip has a tighter spring and no teeth to possibly damage delicate objects. It could be handy to have much larger spring clamps or other types of clamps if you could find a way to narrow the handle enough to fit into the ball joint.