My current helping hands were never that great and have not improved with age. I’m hesitant to spring for a GRS set at $125 despite the good words I’ve seen online about them. While pulling up the link just now I saw this set at Micro-Mark, that seems kind of neat but I haven’t heard anything one way or another about it.
What I’m really looking for isn’t the neat-o factor. I would like a tool that is easy to use
cranks down firmly into place once I get it in the position I want
easy to adjust the position without a lot of fiddling and cursing
quality clamps
sturdy / weighted enough not to move on me more than the RadioShack one did
The cheapest ones don’t seem to hold position well… until I try to adjust the position
I'm not much help wight but interested in what others have to say. My helping hands are also getting older but they still seem to be able to cook, iron and make beds etc. Your requirements sound good and hopefully I can implement them into mine.
I use the same RS unit you are using. I've had it for years. Removed the magnifying glass and solder gun holder. Get rid of the sponge and the tray is good for all the little bits of wire, leads and insulation.
Every once and a while I look around for something better that's rationally priced. Most of them are either expensive or just variations on the RS unit. The one that looks pretty good to me is sold by SparkFun for about $35. It has a nice large aluminum base plate that could be screwed down or clamped.
EDIT:
The tutorial suggests getting this kit through Enco as well as some fittings. From what I can tell SparkFun is using hoses molded by Laixin, but I don’t see any advertised for individual sale on the Internet. eBay has what looks like a lower quality clone of those hoses (also in 6x lots). The molding is obviously a step down, but I wonder how much I’d regret just purchasing a few of those and going from there?
I still haven’t made a move on the helping hands. Here’s another style I ran across. This one is probably not so ideal for the flashlight hobby, but for the RC hobby it looks great. I’m really tempted, although I’d still need to have a regular set of helping hands, so this would cost me even more space!
I've made one recently out of a broken adjustable tripod like this one.
Then i took the crocodile clips off the old helping hand which was similar to the one you linked to from RS.
Heated the ends a little with a butane torch till they were red. Then just pressed them into the "feet" of the tripod.
For the magnifier I drilled a hole about 5mm in the last "foot" and screwed in the thread from the rim of the magnifier.
The great thing about it is that it has a detachable base. So I took it off and unscrewed the mounting screw. Then glued the base sans screw to a little wise like this one...
Click image to see proper representation at fasttech.com
I never knew mine was a Ben Dao tool. Thank you Ben ;-)
Now I can clip on the helping hand when needed.
So I can secure a flashlight body in the vice. With the rubber jaws in place. Work on either end of the head (driver or emitter) and I love the way the tripod thing is much much firmer than the old helping hand but still not a pain to adjust.
The legs are so long that the magnifier can swing back and away when not needed but easily be swung back to check something.
This was something that just came about one day when I was frustrated with my old helping hands and went rummaging through some old boxed up stuff as a displacement activity of sorts so I never took any pictures of it. I will though if you would like to see it. It took me all of 15 minutes to make and just sort of snapped together before my eyes.
Right! I mean for me too. I showed my wife and she said it must be something similar in the personalities- makes sense, birds of a feather and all. Of course I should add that I hate the clutter on my bench. Too hot to clean in the garage right now. Maybe after work. I really like helping hands trick there.
The main thing find myself wishing for on BLF are good smiley’s. Popcorn, Poof!, and the 
