This is my design of the seemingly popular "helping hands". My design is very simple to buld also.

Step 1: Tools Needed for the Construction

The supplies include:
1 small piece of plexiglass or wood to use as the base
wire easily bendable yet firm
2 small screws with large heads
1 1" bolt wiht washer and nut
2 clothespins,aligator clips ect
2 drill dits 1 to use to drill pilot holes for the 2 screws mentioned above, the other 1 size larger than the bolt mentioned above
a countersink
a power drill
needle nose pliers
and a bit to drive the 2 large-headed screws
patience

Step 2: Drill Holes in the Base

Simply put, drill the large hole (i forgot to measure how big it was, i eyeballed it) and counter sink 1 side, the side you countersinked will be the bottom.

Step 3: Now Bend the Wires to Have Eyelets on Both Ends

Use the needle nose pliers to bend a loop, also known as an eyelet ao attach the base to your aligator clips, in my case none were available, so i used clothespins.

Step 4: Now Attach the Clips/clothespins

now take your clothespins and drill a pilot hole for the 2 large-headed screws(for i dont have their actual name, this will suffice)and drive 1 screw through the loop in the wire into the clothespin. repeat this step witht he second side. if you are using aligator clips you could just solder to the wire, but make sure to insulate between teh 2 wires in the next step.

By the way my camear is really cheep $59.99 and 3.2 MP from newegg.com and decides when it wants to take good and bad pics, this is obviously not good at all.

Step 5: Attach the Wires to the Base

attach the wire/clothspin on the opposite end of the clothespin to your base( the 2nd loop u made

Step 6: Attach the Wires to Your Base

Again you are definatly not limited to plexiglass i chose it, along with this entire project because i had al of these supplies an my disposal and i liked the concept. Anyways now attach the unused end of the wire to your base.

Step 7: Now You Should Be Done

Now enjoy using your newly created simple helping hands. This pic isnt very clear but i was soldering 2 wires onto 2 terminals of and on off switch for use in anothe project.

I would like to make it known that i am in fact a noob at posting on instructables, although i have looked at many instuctables and enjoy reading them.