Rolson 60335 Helping Hand with 60 mm Magnifying Glass

I bought this item after spending a few days struggling to tin the connections of a chip to be added to a motherboard. Numerous attempts to complete the tinning prior to this purchase ended in frustration and I have to admit, some swear words!!! This item comes in plastic packaging and was easy to remove with a good sharp pair of scissors. The base has a really good weight to it and the joints appear strong enough to hold some weight steady. Due to the base size, I don't think this would be very good if you were trying to solder onto large flat items as I think the base would topple over due to the small footprint. However, I've now used it for a few projects and the jaws have held the pieces together perfectly without movement. There is a wide range of movement in the arms to get the placement right and the magnifying glass is really strong and out of the box, really clear and mine was scratch free. It is well made and I can see this lasting for a very long time. I would definitely recommend it over some of the more costly versions as this seems to work perfectly. If I had to criticise it for anything, I would say that it could do with some kind of rest for the soldering iron. If you found this review helpful, can you please help me by clicking on the helpful button, thanks. Any questions, please feel free to ask and I will try to answer as best as I can.

I got this to hold small pieces whilst I soldered and fixed them. It is a lot safer than trying to hold the item, and it does do the job for what it was intended. The 2 clips are strong enough to hold the item, they can be swivelled and turned so that you get a wide range of movement. The magnifying lens is good, helps with the close work. The stand has a good weight to it and as long as you do not put anything too heavy to hold, will not tip over. I did find that the magnifier got in my way at times, but the worst part was trying to get the arms in the right place when fixing 2 complex items. It took me a good 15-20 minutes to get the right position. For standard fixings, it should be easy, but when you are trying to align multiple points, it is time consuming. Small enough to store, I can see it proving useful in the long run.

I bought mine when it was on offer recently for well under £3, delivered. At that price I wasn't expecting much but was surprised when it arrived to find it is a reasonably well-made tool with a host of uses. As the cast iron base is painted, it tends to slide around on a table, so I stuck 4 self-adhesive silicone door buffers underneath and it now sits firmly with no tendency to slip. I suppose at less than £5 it's good value. At £2.65 it was a steal! Definitely recommended.

I've had this for a while now and bought it for only one purpose. To help me repair one item of old jewellery which it is sufficient for. If I'm nitpicking the item I received certainly isn't the one in the product picture. The one in the picture looks like it's made from stainless steel and the movable parts well engineered and slick. The one I've got is more like steel (not stainless plus i noticed somebody mention rust!?) and the movable parts are awkward to tighten up and move about as they're not as 'finished' as they could be. You may need a pair of pliers to tighten them up enough but. . .they do work. The stand could do with being a tad heavier too but I suppose you get what you pay for. I will upload a pic. Basically it's a cast iron stand with fully pose-able crocodile clips and a magnifying glass. The magnifier is 'okay' not amazingly powerful but sufficient enough. The clips are strong and may damage delicate items so bare that in mind. You may want to pad them out first. In use it's okay and does the job of magnifying an item for you to do close up work on. I'd give it a go if you're looking to buy one of these things.

used for over 2 years. now living in my storage unit, with other stuff. However not long after buying ended up making some hands for it out of paper and calling it Jeffery. With some googly eyes. would recommend again.

This is an ingenious product, sufficiently well made for its purpose, with a reasonably good magnifying glass (not the cheap plastic lenses you sometimes find, which distort the image badly). Trying to use it with it assembled as supplied and as illustrated, I found it difficult to get the clips close enough together to hold a small workpiece centrally in the field of view of the glass. Also, it was difficult to set the workpiece far enough away from the glass to get the benefit of maximum magnification. One way round this is to take the assembly to pieces and mount the bar vertically on the stand with the glass mounted at the top. The two ring mounts can be arranged about 2/3 of the way down the bar, and the clips then mounted from these. Do this so that most of the assembly hangs over the U shaped side of the base, but with the glass and clips hanging over the other side, for best stability. Sorry I can't add a photo of this! Hope this helps.

Purchased to use while model making, although it has also been used extensively for electronic repairs/soldering. The base is weighted and solid, so no worries about it toppling over while working. The arms are multi-positional and have a large range of movement, and the magnifier is brilliant for close up work such as painting pilots from 1:72 scale model kits. As mentioned, I have used when soldering. This is particularly handy as often you need "two pairs of hands"- keeps everything still so delicate jobs can be done. Great price and very useful- highly recommended.

Definitely beats some of the others on here- it'll do for soldering smaller PCBs and the magnifier is top notch. Great value for money and good materials- you get a glass magnifier, and a solid metal construction. That being said, the arms are not sturdy and will come off easily- you need to be careful. They're also not that stiff. You have to constantly retighten the setup for it to be good, and I doubt it's longevity.