Vacuum tweezers and photo etch

never seen or heard of a vacuum tweezer, but the concept sounds simple enough...... 

 Cost = unreasonable...  I'm thinking if you were that dedicated to the cause  aquarium pump + brass/styrene tubing.

  There is also the issue of static cling. When tiny brass parts are jumping towards my tweezers or refusing to let go I give them a little spray of static guard and wipe them down thoroughly.

Good points, Ed, thanks.

Hi Ed,

Thanks for all the research.  I was thinking of something a little less industrial.  Here's what I came across over at Micromark.  It's a suction device and the smallest cup is 1/8 inch.  Just curious if anyone had used these before and if they were of any value.

http://www.ares-server.com/Ares/Ares.asp?MerchantID=RET01229&Action=Catalog&Type=Product&ID=82304

Gerarddm wrote:

No, but my finely-pointed metal tweezers have become slightly magnetized, and are almost unusable now when placing delicate PE, as I can't disengage the tweezers without moving the PE piece. I have to find some kind of delicate polymer tweezer, or maybe cobble up a wooden tweezer.  What are vacuum tweezers, sounds interesting.

While stainless steel is ferrous and thus possibly magnetic,  brass and nickle photoetch are not.   They are not atttracted to magnets.   Magnetization may not be your problem.

Inspect the tips of your tweezers closely.   You may find a residue of glue or a nick which prevents the tips from releasing smoothly.   It may also be too much coffee in the operator.  I can't do much about the latter, but you can clean and tune the tips of your tweezers with some fine emory cloth/wet-n-dry sand paper.   It will remove any glue residue and polish any nicks or irregularities from the inner surfaces of the tips.  

 You may also wish to look at some fine-point cross action tweezers.  They hold when released and release when squeezed.

If that fails,  the hardware store sells tool demagnetizers to remove induced magnetization. 

Edit

On the subject of vacuum tweezers, this is the cheapest place I found doing a quick google.  You are looking at 160 USD for a 120vAC system.  (That will buy a lot of stainless steel  tweezers!)  Other places started at more than 600 USD.

http://shorinternational.com/TweezersSpecialty.htm

The problems I see are the smallest "suction cup" used to hold/manipulate the material is 5mm.  Items smaller than that will probably not make a good seal & not be picked up.  Also the 5mm cup is going to get in the way when you try to glue the part in place.   Next, think of the configuration of most ship PE.   It is full of holes.  There is nothing that can create the vacuum to pick up the part.   It may work on flat sheet stock like on armor, but not on railings and radar dishes.

No, but my finely-pointed metal tweezers have become slightly magnetized, and are almost unusable now when placing delicate PE, as I can't disengage the tweezers without moving the PE piece. I have to find some kind of delicate polymer tweezer, or maybe cobble up a wooden tweezer.  What are vacuum tweezers, sounds interesting.