The device more or less mimics the size of the original. Arms are made out of leftover 20x20mm Misumi rail, the grippers are made from HDPE (available at your local TAP plastic), the slide rod is out of an old printer and the friction bushing is UHMW (that was kind of the tricky part, getting it just the right ID such that sticktion was sufficient to hold the board but not so rigid that you couldn't move the arm.
The rod and the friction bushing are both secured to the Misumi with Locktite 635
I'm sure by now you have looked into the PTFE (I considered it for Stickvise). The problem with it is cost, it's like 10x the price of nylon. I have done some hot air testing and as long as you don't point your hot air directly at the jaws, you'll be fine with your HDPE jaws. Another option is using FR4 for the jaws, either by stacking PCB scraps or buying garolite from mcmaster carr.
Thanks Alex :-) Since this is a one-off I was constrained by what I had in stock - I've found that the device is sufficiently heavy that I can mount the pcb halfway out of it and remove components away from the jaws. The trick, as you said, is to find something that's not slippery, is high temp and isn't $300/sheet :-) There's always brass...
I'm sure by now you have looked into the PTFE (I considered it for Stickvise). The problem with it is cost, it's like 10x the price of nylon. I have done some hot air testing and as long as you don't point your hot air directly at the jaws, you'll be fine with your HDPE jaws. Another option is using FR4 for the jaws, either by stacking PCB scraps or buying garolite from mcmaster carr.