My wonderful wife sometimes accuses me of being “all thumbs”. Well, at times that might be true, but other times I feel I don’t have nearly enough fingers to work on my modeling projects. In fact, there are times where I could certainly use another hand!

To give myself a “helping hand” (pun intended) with my projects, I set about making a simple device that can hold small items. I regularly use wooden cloth pins to hold parts together, so why not add a base to make it into a handy tool? For this project you’ll need a cloth pin, wood doweling, wood block, a screw and washer, and some glue. In about 5 minutes we should have our tool.

I started this project by cutting the wood doweling to about 1 ½ inches long, and the block of wood into about a 2 inch square. These measurements are entirely up to you and can be just about anything.

Next, drill the hole in the block of wood, making it just a bit smaller than your doweling. Also at this time drill a hole in your wooden cloth pin slightly larger than your screw and washer. I also like to drill a pilot hole in the doweling so when I put the screw in it won’t break it.

Next, take a glue of your choice and apply to the base of the doweling. Now tap the doweling into the block of wood. You might want to take the time and wipe any excess glue off your project before it gets all over the place. (There it is again: The “voice of experience”)

Lastly, you screw the wooden cloth pin onto the doweling. You’ll need to play with how tight the screw should be. I decided not to make the screw real tight, as I wanted to be able to adjust the angle the cloth pin can point.

If you want to get real fancy, you can cut down the end of the cloth pin so it can better hold small objects. These project holders were so easy to make that I built a bunch of them. Some have the regular ends, and some I made with the cut-down ends.