Hi all,
If you could recommend one tool or piece of equipment for kit building, what would it be?
I’m pretty new to the hobby and I’m both overwhelmed and drooling at all the options for tools, jigs, etc. As a newbie (and someone trying to keep to a monthly budget) I’m trying to keep myself to “essentials” and build up my workshop as I go.
I currently have a couple wood kits and a set of 4 Tichy MOW car kits to assemble.
Thanks
-matthew
One tool? One is not enough! However, an X-acto knife and tweezers are very important. Small jeweler’s files are a good investment, along with a small screw driver set, both Phillips and Straight blades. Of course you will need the appropriate glues. I have on hand the tube cements for plastics; but, I prefer the bottles with the brush for application, if you can find them. When you find one, cut off most of the brittles do you end up with maybe 10 15 bristles, this allows you to pick up a drop or so of the cement and makes this applicator much more controllable. Of course Testers now has glue bottles with small applicator tubes on them. Tenex 7R and Plaststruct also make bottles with brush applicators that will work just as well. I use both thick and thin CA glues and white or carpenter’s glue and even have a tube of the old Ambroid’s for gluing wood parts together.
Glues are worth another whole thread.
… a Swiss Army knife!
Seriously, I doubt that one tool will suffice to do a good job - you will need a little more than that.
Welcome, Matthew! [#welcome]
If you don’t already have one, the absolutely most essential tool is the hobby knife. Model Railroader associate editor Cody Grivno shows and explains the tools that belong in any modeler’s toolbox in this Basic Training video. Check it out. It’s a free video.
Thanks! I have collected a lot of the tools mentioned in the video. Maybe the thing I need most right now is a toolbox! I’m just using a table and have all my misc. knives etc. laying around. Organized, I am not.
A small well stocked tool kit. As the others have said there is a group of basic tools, beyond them you start to get into more specialized. Wood kits, plastic kits and scenery all take different basic tools. Something I found doing more advanced plastic kits was the need for a pin vise and a set of small drills or a reamer set to open small holes for grab irons, earlier, basic kits I had done had no need for such things. For foam scenery a sharp knife and a Surform Shaver are the most used.
You’ll end up with quite a collection before you are done.
Have fun,
Richard
This website is the best tool for new modelers.
This website and the magazine are great resources but they also set a very high bar and can be quite intimidating as well.
There is one tool that I use for EVERY detailed project: Magnification.
It might be an Optivisor, which I use, or it might be an eye loupe or some other device; but something to magnify the work is essentia for all detail work, from painting & decaling to complex kit building & detailing. Without that, many projects are doomed to failure or mediocrity.
Tom
P.S. But you’ll also need a bunch of other stuff including abrasives, clamps, screwdrivers, drills, tools for cutting, etc. Start with the basics mentioned by others and gradually build up your tool collection.
You don’t need all that much to assemble rolling stock kits, either wood or plastic. A hobby knife (Xacto) and a pack of #11 blades (the straight edge sort that tapers to a needle point). After that, some small files (jewelers files) for removing flash and squaring things up.
Small tools tend to walk. A toolbox to keep them in will keep them around longer. Gives you a place to put them away where you can find them again.
I try not to buy tools until I am actually doing a project that calls for them. This way my tool collection builds up with stuff that I actually use, as opposed to those nifty sets of things that don’t get used much.
I read the OP to be asking about specialized tools assuming there are already some tools in the house. Thus I agree with Steve Otte and others who named the hobby knife (and yeah plenty of fresh blades!) as the single most important specifically hobby related tool that is needed. I mean, the normal household presumably has “regular” (non-hobby) tools that in a pinch can be pressed into hobby service, but it is likely that nothing in the “normal” home can quite do what a hobby knife can do.
For example yes you need files but the normal home workshop likely has files that can be pressed into service, or at least emory boards if not sandpaper or emory cloth stapled to a piece of wood. I am not arguing that these are just as good as the hobby specific files and reamers, but that they can be used - you can get by.
A “normal” house might even have a good magnifying glass which again is not as helpful as an Optivisor but can be used.
Dave Nelson
Agree, the “hobby” knife is really thr most essential tool.
When at about 8-9 years old doing those AMT and Revelle kits, you couldn’t get the part off those old “nasty” sprues w/o some sort of single edge razor or an Xacto knife. We all graduated into the full on Xacto/ hobby kits and the mirard of a tool for almost every facet building.
Thanks, that is more what I meant. For example, in the MRR article this month about building wood kits the author uses a pretty nifty magnetic jig and machinist squares.
-matthew
(How many posts do you need before they stop reviewing them?)
I get by with an economy set of X-acto knives, a cheap miter box and zona saw and a good pair of tweezers. Recently added a pair of magnetic assembly clamps. You can build craftsmen quality kits with these simple tools. However I am a fan of Norm Abrahms school of you can never have too many tools (from a guy who owns 5 circular saws as I used to supply them on construction jobs to the crew).
[:-^]
Unless, the one tool is eyes, right Ulrich ?
The mosy important is a sprue nipper of the PBL type, next is sheet sandpaper or the nail type, hat takes care of the Tichy kits. Next is x-acto knife and small drill pits (you ussually need both for the wood kits if cars). You realy don’t need a Dremel at first though it can come in handy later.
If you build kits with fine plastic parts such as Intermountain, Proto 2000, even ExactRail etc. the sprue nipper is a huge help! I would place the hobby knife and set of small files 2nd and 3rd. I use my small files all the time to dress parts etc.
Eyeglasses.
Well, as others have noted, one isn’t enough. Here’s my list in order of importance.
Good light. If you can’t see what you’re doing it won’t be right. You need more than one light source to avoid shadows. I like to have 2 desk lights and an overhead.
Optivisors. Again to see what you’re doing. Get the real Optivisors - they cost extra, but are worth it.
(tie) Hobby knife.
(tie) Tweezers.
(tie) Toothpicks (or other glue applicators)
I can’t think of a single kit that I’ve put together that didn’t use all of these.
Depending on the kit you may need screwdrivers, paintbrushes, files, miter box, saw, scale ruler, weights, micrometer, NMRA/NASG gauge for your scale, sandpaper/sanding sticks/emory boards, etc.
Good luck
Paul
Single most essential tool for kit building? That would be a bottle opener to crack a beer with.