The Best Tools are Scary-Looking

How much more joy can I stand? My Pana Hands third hand device for my Panavise arrived yesterday.

This is a pretty neat item. Constructed of a very nice cast base, alligator clips, and flexible pipe, it attaches directly to a Panavise and allows you to hold up to 4 things in place at a time.

The people who make it pack it in a nice box and include candy with it. Call it smart promotion. Call it entrapment. It worked on me. I was quite pleased to receive a packet of Starbursts with my tool.

Ufortunately, I’m not the only one here who likes Starbursts. As you can see, the Pana Hands caught a thief trying to purloin them, and it was in the process of administering punishment when I took this photo.

Do not ask me why a male over the age of 4 owns a stuffed animal. I have friends. They like to have their fun. That’s all I’m willing to say.

I think the menacing appearance of the Pana Hands is the best part. Even when it’s idle and the work area is dark, it’s there to scare burglars and children with its Dr. Octopus impression.

You can put a similar third hand device together for less money if you’re willing to order parts from Banggood and so on. I didn’t want to wait weeks and deal with whatever problems might arise from trying to match parts from different vendors. They sell assembled kits. I don’t know if any of them fit the Panavise. Do I really want to deal with Chinese shipping and mysterious return policies to save twenty bucks? No.

Today I plan to open my old Dremel up and see if I can use the Panavise to position it so I can solder a broken wire on the armature. I don’t know whether I can pull it off, but sometimes the process is more important than the result.

You can buy new Dremel armatures for $35.00, and that would be cheaper than a new Dremel. They’re very expensive now.

I looked at other hand-held rotary tools, and it appears they’re all junk, except for overpriced high-end tools and the offerings from Proxxon. I don’t want to blow $90 or whatever on a second Proxxon.

Rotary tools should be on everyone’s short list. Duct tape, impact driver, rotary tool. If you have these things, maybe 85% of life’s annoying challenges will succumb to your efforts.

I used a Dremel to cut a bed frame once. That’s how great these small tools are. I had a bed frame with sharp pieces of angle iron (actually steel) sticking out where I managed to drive my feet into them from time to time. I’m thinking the thickness was about 3/16″. I had like 4 tools at the time. I got out the Dremel and some cutting disks and cut the corners off the frame. It would have been hard with a tool like a saw.

Dremels drill, grind, cut, and polish. They probably do other things I haven’t thought about.

If I can get the Dremel working properly, maybe I’ll let the Pana Hands use it on the squirrel. I don’t like to be harsh, but someone has to make an example of household tortfeasors.