Usually I do this with small fragile glass housing diodes. I use a little screwdriver as guide, and wind the leads on it.
They take more space, but I'm no longer a diode destroyer!
I'll have to give that a try, that does seem like a good option!
For some reason I've always been concerned with having a exposed leads, which is why I've steered clear of vertical resistors (orthogonal to the pcb?). But if a small amount of exposed lead doesn't matter, I may try and vertically/orthogonally orient some diodes, since it might be easy to clamp part of the lead while bending the remainder.
testing testing testing...
