I feel your pain. If I had five cents for everytime I wished for a 3rd hand and prehensile tail, I'd have enough to get another drum and belt for my RPD.
I used to work on guns and found hemostats useful for such projects. From Edmund Scientific, I scored a bag of magnets in various shapes and sizes - mostly small - and those have helped a lot, too. The NRA assembly books are very much worth buying if you take guns apart very much. Persistence is the key.
It sounds like it'ss too late for another trick I use for stuff I've never seen before - make a drawing. I still do that when I need to put a new element in the dryer - eliminates the guesswork when reconnecting the wires. There can be a negative consequence if you botch that.
A former friend collected the most oddball stuff he could find and always brought them over to be cleaned. I learned a bunch that way.
Another good place to look for specific tips is 24hourcampfire.com
And welcome to the mess...
SW
SW
