Once I just used a couple of woodworking clamps to hold it to the table. A few times I have used a vise (dicey - you could "unround" the cylinder), but mostly I just have this wooden gizmo I made for holding shotshells when roll crimping. It will old round things pretty well, and I rubber banded it in position with some bicycle innertube. Not pretty, but effective.

I have tungsten wire, but have also had extremely good results with pantyhose thread. It is amazingly fine - if you thoroughly dissect the yarn down to the last fibers.

If the screws for the crosswires are hacked up, one can simply glue the new crosshairs with superglue. Either way, a hemostat can be very helpful for that work.

I sent my first broken crosshairs to Sexton (forget his company name now) in Tulsa. Took half a year or so. Won't be going back. Much easier to do it myself.

If you want center mil dots or something other than simple crosshairs, you need a pro. But I like stuff simple.

_________
BrentD, (Professor - just for Stan)

[Linked Image from i.imgur.com]