AVR-Chat

>good tweezers to place the part
I like to use a manual vacuum pickup tool for placing ICs with pins on four sides.  They're relatively inexpensive and work well.  The link below is but one example.
http://www.tecratools.com/product973.html

>a hold down device to secure the part before soldering
For hand placement/soldering, I've found solder paste an invaluable aid.  With it you can put a small dot of paste on two or four corner pads of an IC and then place the part.  After adjusting the position, a quick touch with the soldering iron on each of the pads with solder paste will tack the IC in place.  I've begun using soldering paste to aid in soldering some through-hole parts, too, because it eliminates the need for a third hand to hold the solder.

The solder paste that I've used is Digi-Key p/n KE1512-ND.  I see that they now carry a smaller tube from a different manufacturer, p/n SMD4300AX10-ND.  I use the water soluble but you may prefer no-clean.

>and a headband magnifier.
If you can afford it, a stereo zoom boom microscope is a great aid.  I find it much more convenient to use than the headband type magnifier but the latter is much less expensive.

>A shortfall of the convection oven and fry pan is knowing
>how to set them properly, sounds easy - isn't.
I've had good results on small batches/single boards using a home-made reflow oven built using a small convection oven and a microcontroller to implement the temperature profile.  You can find several articles on the subject on the Internet.  A brief description of mine can be found here:
http://www.zbasic.net/forum/about368.html

Don Kinzer
ZBasic Microcontrollers
http://www.zbasic.net