Cool Tools ran a DIY Contest. The winner was Steve Hoefer and his “Hand Lights:”
There are tons of head mounted lights to light your work, but they only put light where you point your head. And when your viewpoint and your lighting are close together everything appears flat with little or no shadow.
Enter the Hand Lights, a pretty simple and cheap DIY project that puts adjustable lights on your forearms to light whatever is in your hands. They have the advantage over head mounted lights because they always put the light where you’re working. They also provide better light since it comes from multiple directions (if you wear two) to provide both more illumination and a better sense of depth.
I use these all the time, everything from sculpting and crafting projects (the light on my sewing machine is dismal, these help make up for it) to provide extra lights while soldering, cleaning out the attic, working on the car, and late night reading. Adding a binder clip and a magnet they can be stuck just about anywhere.
Steve has an Instructable for making your own.
ADVERTISEMENT
