[Y]
[Y]
[Y]
[Y]
[Y]
-Kevin
I don’t use one either. My eye doctor prescribed me a special pair of glasses with high magnification that I can focus on items about 6-8 inches away.
These are amazing. And to think of it, they were just $44.00 to have. That might be my best under 50 dollar item.
-Kevin
As only three items (three locomotives) cost more than $50 and everything else on my layout didn’t, where do I start?
David
Good point David, the OP said item, but all we are talking about is tools.
I might need to change my answer to my Athearn Trainmaster! I get more enjoyment from this old beaten workhorse than from anything else.
-Kevin
Hello
HO ReRailer:
I went for many years without one of these, could always pop HO cars onto the track just by feel with my fingertips. Just bought one of these a few months ago. Boy, does it make it easier to put an articulated locomotive onto the track.
Other stuff, HO Standards Gauge, Scale Ruler, Optivisor, Tweezers, I have had all that stuff since before a lot of you were born.
Doug
100% agree. I never had one for decades. One was included in my first set of HO scale Unitrack I bought about three years ago.
What an amzing tool! Everyone should have one. It makes life much easier.
-Kevin
A bright work bench light.
Cheers, the Bear.[:)]
Wait! You spent under $50 on dinner for your wife? And, she still allows you to spend more time in your train room?? Shame on you. [swg]
Rich
That makes two of us.
Rich
Nearsightedness be damned! If you have never used an Optivisor, you simply don’t know what you are missing.
Rich
Absolutely!
I miss my workbench.
-Kevin
Sorry, can’t pick just one:
Micro-Mark Coupler Gauge - Far superior to the Kadee couple height gauge. Either the coupler fits between the bars or it doesn’t. No moving parts, you can drop it and not damage it, your cars/locos don’t couple up to it, etc. And it’s just $11.
Micro-Mark Spring Grabber - The best darn knuckle and truck spring applicator in the hobby. Way better than anything Kadee makes. It’s all-metal and the ball knob on the end that grabs the spring is a solid piece. It’s just $9.
Flex-I-File Touch-N-Flow Glue Applicator System - This has changed how I build models and the results are superb. Before, I was never a big user of super-thin liquid glue; it just didn’t hold well compared to the thicker glues I was used to, and getting it to flow where I wanted and not all over the model was a challenge. The Touch-N-Flow is a glass tube with a blunt metal needle tip; you attach a plastic squeeze bottle to the glass, suck up the glue, detach the bottle, then you apply the glue to the model with it’s ultra fine tip. I have built a number of Red Caboose, InterMountain, and Branchline-level high-end kits with this system, and it works like a charm. I have vastly reduced the gluing errors I made with the thicker glues. And it is $22 with the applicator, squeeze bottle, and a bottle of liquid cement included.
Microbrushes - The disposable brushes are available in regular, fine, and ultrafine. A pack of 25 brushes are just $6.
Sanding Sticks - Available in multiple grits, a 5
Probably for me either a good, multi-brightness level headlamp or a pair of reverse-action tweezers. The tweezers I had never even thought of until I saw and bought them at a show, and now I use it so frequently I wouldn’t know what to do without them! And the headlamp is vital to seeing all the details regardless of when/where I am working, with the brightness levels helping to adjust to different models and avoid glare! A close next would be a good set of X-Acto blades and handles.
If you are nearsighted, at least as much as I used to be, you don’t need an optivisor. I was so nearsighted all my life that my focal distance was about 3" from my nose. I could take my glasses off and see everything up close in perfect detail. After I had cataract surgery a little bit more than a year ago I cannot do that anymore.The closest I can focus is about 3 feet. I use reading glasses with a 2 1/2 diopter correction for reading now. Even with that, I cannot focus on anything close up now, so now I do use the optivisor I bought many years ago. I also have a magnifying light mounted on my work bench, and a couple of jeweler’s loups. These things all get used in one combination or another to see really close up detail.
I used the wrong terminology in my post. That was exactly what I was talking about Dennis. I love my reverse action tweezers for many things. But I have learned not to use them to hold tiny pieces while I’m detail painting them. When one of those tiny pieces flip out of the tweezers, I’ve seen them fly as far as eight feet across the room and never find it again[(-D]
TF
For me, I have to say my pin- vice.
( sorry, I had to hyphenate that word… stupid auto correct!!)
Anyways, I find this one tool INDISPENSABLE !!!
( I now have 5 of them in various sizes, and, they sometimes do double duty because the different “chuck” sizes can be fitted to my dremel as well.)
My 20 some sets of tweezers run a close second .
This is probably a stupid answer, but the best investment I made in model railroading was actually free. It is a small slot screwdriver that I received decades ago as part of a promotion. It has a small magnet in the top of the handle which has come in handy many times, but the real reason that I am mentioning something so mundane is that I seem to use it almost every time I am at the workbench. It fits 2-56 screws nicely, but using it on screws is only a small part of its functionality. It it perfect for mixing and applying epoxy or applying solder flux, and it works great for spreading car bodies apart to remove the frames. I could go on and on.
Dave
I actally have a few.
One: As I nail down my track, for me, it would be my tack hammer. The first one I has was a freebie from my now late maternal grandmother. The current one cost I think $10 or so.
Two: Either pair of my electrician’s pliers. I can use them to cut and strip wires and crimp electrical connectors. (Although a good chuck of the time anymore I just use my teeth to strip wire.) As I have a sectional layout, I designed the wiring to be able to separate with quick disconnects if the sections need to move. (Hopefully they won’t ever have to again as some of those sections have moved twice already.)
Three: These were a freebie as well but they were my late father’s. A complete set of Craftsman framing clamps. Very nice when building rectangular benchwoork.
Four & Five: My hot knife and my hack saw. Handy when carving styrofoam when building hills. (Working on an extension to an existing hill for a removable staging/inerchange yard.)
I’d say the NCE USB interface. Being able to program locomotives through JMRI has been a game changer for me. Now I can have some ability to change the functions of Soundtraxx, TCS, Paragon, etc to at least be somewhat similar (i.e. waterfill on function 11, grade crossing whistle at function 4). Trying to do that just through the CVs was incredibly time consuming.
The best part is, I had some store credit from the shop I bought it from, so it only ended up costing around $10.
How about a list of everything cheap but indispensable with a total cost not to exceed $500.00?
Free stuff is indispensabow under this definition so anything inherited or acquired shall we say is to be valued arbitrarily at $5.00.
Speaking of that my most valued hobby tool right now is a really old and high quality American made wire stripper I inherited when my step father died. He was an instrument engineer. With old tools like that you remember the guy who gave it to you every time you use it. Great feeling. Great tool.