Last week I was at the train club and I needed to make a whole in a tie so I could nail down a wayward section of track. I was handed a pin vise with a small drill bit attatched. And I thought, “What a cool tool.” I’ve been aroun tools all my life and I’d never seen one.
So what I thought is with all the great knowledge and experience out there that it would be a lot of fun to share our favorite tools. These can be tools that you just acquired. Ones that you made custom. Ones that you adapted from their original use. Or just ones that you like.
There are none so common that someone won’t benefit from hearing about it.
So here’s my contibution: The pin vise. Uses probably lots, but I have only used it to put holes in plastic ties.
Wow - I discovered the pin vice really early in my return to the hobby many years ago. wouldn’t be caught without one. Drill holes in rolling stock for handrails, grab irons, horns, etc. Making starter holes for larger drill bits in heavyier materials, etc.
I have 2 tools that I have been using all the time recently.
The Micro Mark Field Grass planting tool. Actually it looks like it is a paintbrush with the hairs removes and a large darning needle stuck in where the brush hairs would go. the top of the needle eye is cut off, leaving a V shape. Put some Woodland scenics grass in the V and push into the foam scenery base. Works great.
A sprue nipper. Obvious use, nipping small parts off the sprue, but I also use it to quickly nip off the detail from the top of removed railroad ties that I am going to slide back under the track where ties have been removed to join flex track.
Screw Holder / Starter - Holds screws so you can get them started in tight places. I prefer the Walther’s one. I also have a different style that I got from my IBM repairman that I also use.
Look under tools in “Search the Forums” as this subject has been raised before many times. Clamps are the thing I use the most, always looking for good, cheap clamps. When I built R/C airplanes, someone came up with using spring type clothes pins, both as made and modified. As made they have good clamping power but a short reach. Modified, they have slightly less clamping power, more parallel clamping faces and deeper reach. To modify, simply remove the wood clamping legs, reverse the clamping legs so the outside surfaces now becomes the inside surfaces and stick the legs into the clamping spring backwords, so what was the clamping handles become the clamping jaws. This sounds way more difficult than it is. Once you have 10-15 of these clamps around, you will wonder how you ever did without them! They are cheap and extremly useful.
Ive used jest two. A xacto knife and a screwdriver set. Now before you all laugh at me, my workbench is littered with hand tools that are used once or twice for a specific model problem like drills, cradles, 90 degree square etc etc
I can never have enough tools. One day I will have a complete workbench *…having visions of purchasing Home Depot complete with interior inventory.
Reality says I need to keep the ones I work regularly handy and the rest in a safe place until they are needed.
Pin Vise, huh? Micromark has a sprung one that you can use as a push drill - just push up and down, and it drills the hole (not sure if you really gain much, although it’s a bit easier on the wrist when you have a lot of big holes to drill - oh yes, don’t use small bits (<60) w/ this, as you’ll likely get the ol’ half-bit-stuck-in-the-work-piece deal).
On the same note, that pin-vise can hold a needle, and so help you press a tiny starter ‘dimple’ for the drill bit so it doesn’t wander when you begin drilling and mess up your paint/finish (guess you could use this to all make a few quite ad-hoc rivet holes/impressions if need by)
Two X-acto knife tips (not mine originally of course, but perhaps useful):
Glue/tape a small square piece of styrene to the end (well, where-ever you DON’T normally place your fingers when cutting) - this prevents a rolling knife, which are NOT a good thing (I think Micromark used to sell triangluar sectioned plastic press-on pieces for the same purpose; then again, they used to sell a lot of things…)
You’re supposed to carve away from your hand (and body), for obvious reasons. Unfortunately, it seems both control and strength are much better carving toward you (and your hand holding the piece), so most people carve toward themselves regardless of the potential for problems. Well, in that case, a small metal-foam finger splint (a few bucks brought 2) on the finger holding the piece can help prevent unwanted disaster if the knife slips.
A fine, flat file. Just the thing for squaring-off kit parts and also very handy when installing Kadees on more unusual models. I bought a set of five assorted files cheaply in a French supermarket while on holiday there a couple of years ago - cost me about £3 or so but seem to be pretty effective.
I agree about the pin vise and screw holder - I have both, the screw holder usually resides in my computing toolkit but it’s occasionally used for tricky model RR jobs. One of my best investments of recent years has been a set of titanium-tipped tiny drills and a pin vise - very useful for drilling out solder from circuit board holes as well as adding handrails, etc!
One I found for my tool box, I got a fishing tackle box. All the compartments work great for the tools I use for the trains. (Much smaller than the ones I use at work, it nice) Also, keep my common paints, extra railjoiners, files etc.
But my favortie tool, much to my fiancees concern, is my 9" long kitchen knife. I originally started useing to cut the foam when I first started building my layout and ust kept finding uses for it. here are some uses, but not limited too [:)] Cut cork, railties off the flex track, small hammer, screw driver, wire stripper, model tree pruner, removeing splinters from fiinger, sprue trimmer, wire cutter, and most recently, used to remove handrails on a deseil for painting, and anti-cat deivce for layout security.
(sorta kidding abou the last one)
Dont know what i do without.
I have to keep a roll of masking tape on my work bench at all times, I use it in almost every thing I build, Holding thngs together when glueing. to hold things while painting, Roll roofing on buildings,window shades and on and on and its cheap too! Cox 47
I got a dremel moto-tool various tubes of glue, multimeter a small tack hammer and couple other things But i was wondering what the heck is a anticat device is it anything like a super soaker cause thats what i use !!!
Dark
P.S. no cats were harmed in the making of this reply
Wow, thanks for the tip on the field grass planting tool. I’m not quite there yet with the layout but I do have some packages of field grass and I was wondering what I was going to use to plant them!!
One other use for the sprue nipper is to help removing truck pins from bolsters when changing trucks. I tried with needle nose pliers but tend to cru***he plastic pin head. The sprue nipper is fine enough to slip under the head from both sides and pry it up.
I’m not sure if this qualifies as a tool but I thought of it myself rather than stealing it from someone else. I bought a box of plastic tubes to hold siliver dollars. The kind I have are called coin safes. I use them to sort all of my small parts; joiners, screws, couplers, wheelsets, etc. The ones I have are round on the inside but actually square on the outside so that you don’t have to worry about them rolling away while working with them and the lids stay on securely. They are easy to label with the flat surfaces and I can just grab the one or two that I need and not mess with plastic bags or larger sets of drawers. Perfect for the tool box. You can buy them by the box of 100 and split them with one or two other people.
When I got back into model railroading in 1986 after a 16-year lay-off, I was delighted to discover Kadees; the notorious X2F was my biggest headache during my earlier modelling days. After a couple of exercises in contortion while back-fitting KDs to older equipment, I purchased a soft-foam cradle from MicroMark. It holds cars or locomotives safely and securely while I work on them. One of my most indispensable tools.
I meant to add that you are fortunate, Spacemouse, to have been shown early on that using a pin vise is easy; many modellers spend years thinking it is beyond their skills. Next lesson: after using a pin vise, using a tap to cut threads is a piece of cake. WHen you buy a pin vise, do NOT buy the Xacto one. Any other brand will work fine, but Xacto seemingly has spent years perfecting the useless pin vise.
When I was gluing something recently I realized that the small “Chip Clip” clamps from the kitchen gadget drawer would work well for holding the piece I was gluing. It seems the longer I live, the more I realize that whoever said “necessity is the mother of invention” was right on!
