Hakko 611-1 Soldering Related Equipment

I have had this for a few months and it works ok but I needed to make a tweak to it to make it more useful. It has a wire extension on it with a loop in the middle to hold the solder at an angle but this extension does not stay in one place. It is meant to be adjustable but flops down so I drilled on both sides and put screws in against the wire to hold it in one place. See the photo. The other minor frustration with this holder is the spool will not fit thru the solder spools when new unless you cut off the piece of solder inside the new spools first. See photo showing the piece of solder inside the spool that needs cut.