Working with SMD parts? TWEEZERS are everything.

When I first started taking solder seriously, I used household tweezers when I needed.  That took about ten minutes before I realized they sucked.  So I bought a manicure set, hoping those tweezers would be better.  After one session, the two arms broke apart.

So I bought a generic set of “technical tweezers” from Amazon.  Then I was told by a good friend that you really need to look at “precision tip” tweezers, and he sent me a link to McMaster-Carr’s stainless steel tweezers page.  I ordered a set of Aven Technik tweezers ($33) for comparison.

On the left is the bite of the generic Amazon tweezers, which are clearly simply far lower quality tweezers designed and marketed to look like precision-tip tweezers.  Look how misaligned the bite is, and how little surface area is actually making contact at the bite, compared to the Aven Technik on the right.  When dealing with near-microscopic parts, the Aven will grip the part solidly, while the tweezer on the left is likely to twist it around and send it flying across the room like a clipped fingernail.