The other day I forgot to mention a very important part of my soldering gear: the PanaVise Junior. It’s a miniature vise. Its jaws have grooves that make it perfect for holding small circuit boards. The best part is that it’s only $16, with free shipping from Amazon. I wouldn’t solder without it.
PanaVise Junior in action
PanaVise makes a whole series of vise bases and heads, and I’ll probably end up with several of their products, but Junior model is absolutely perfect for working on small circuit boards.
A similar product is the ubiquitous “third hand,” as seen here. I have one of those too, but I don’t use it nearly as often as the PanaVise Junior. Some people actually use them to hold to hold small circuit boards while working on them, but either their third hands are much sturdier than mine or they’re crazy. It’s nice for attaching connectors to wires and that sort of thing, but I wouldn’t say it’s essential. I got mine for $4-5 from an electronics supplier. For that price, it’s not a bad deal for occasional use.
Along the same lines, I have a pair of medical hemostats that I use for holding things. For instance, a lot of projects will require you to solder headers onto a circuit board. It’s virtually impossible to get the headers to stay where you want them. I use the hemostats to hold the headers while I solder one pin. Remove them, check for alignment, reclamp, and solder the far pin, then remove and solder all the other pins. It makes dealing with headers much easier. It got mine from SparkFun for a few dollars.
agreed, perfect price and perfect for small stuff