Laughing Man wrote:Pin vices are more of hobby items (I bought mine at Hobby Lobby,
IIRC), but you can find them occasionally at hardware stores. As for the brass rod, it's technically a better material, but the difference is small enough that you won't notice. The only real advantage is that the brass rod comes in more diameters, so you can vary the size of the pin depending on what you're working with.
This. Honestly I've yet to find a job a standard paper clip won't work with. From wold guardians to wolves of orboros, no issues. If you throw or drop a figure from a high table, it's more likely to break somewhere it's not supposed than at a pinned location.
Also, I'd say avoid using that stuff that melts plastic into itself. For a wide variety of reasons it's worth being able to salvage the figure and break it back down into stripped pieces. You can still do that after melting, but it involves using a saw, and it's not fun by any stretch of imagination.