And no, I don’t need any new bad habits.

I have this vice…


https://www.harborfreight.com/4-inch-jaw-capacity-drill-press-vise-30999.html


I is incredibly useful for someone who only has one working hand, but it is heavy and clunky. I was wondering if it has a smaller lighter cousin, maybe one made out of plastic perhaps?

 

The "Must Have" hobbyist vise (which I never bought) has to be the PanaVise with the vacuum suction base. However, it needs a perfectly smooth surface to achieve it. They do also have a non-suction weighted-base. They are made of cast zinc and PanaVise makes all kinds of attachments for their base including a PCB holder for soldering. There are also plenty of aluminum/etc. "knock-offs" as they have been popular for many years now. They rank right up there in Nerdiness with the Dremel Tool. What you have is typically bolted down on a drill press table.

https://www.amazon.com/PanaVise-381-Vacuum-Base/dp/B000B63276/ref=sr_1_4

 

This is my "new" favorite vice. I've had it for years, but just started using it recently.

 

It depends on what you want to hold and how strongly. What you've shown us is a cheap steel machinist's vise, typically used to hold work on a drill press but also useful for many other tasks.

In your situation, having the work holder affixed in an immovable fashion such as bolted to a bench would seem useful so that with one hand you have very positive counterforce for intended movements. All of the Panavise options require two handed setup, one to position and one to clamp. In the photography realm there are "grip ball" tripod heads that can be positioned with one hand but require adequate strength to manipulate and since they are held in position by a spring, have a positional strength limit that must be accommodated. You need Panavise and Manfrotto to collaborate and build you a grip ball version of one of their lighter work holding vises or more realistically perhaps someone could adapt an existing Panavise ball base to one handed use by using a foot lever under the bench to unclamp a sprung locking mechanism.