I visited michaels today and was looking for various proucts that would work for the train layout builing. So, I was curios what products everyone buys for the layouts at Michaels besides envirotex for water? Thanks.
I buy from there or Jo-Anns, colored decorative sand, get it in black and it is great for coal cars and I recently got some grey that was good for quarry. I also get the cheap acrylic paint for weathering my cars. It is cheap, something like 60 cents a bottle, so I can get a lot of colors without breaking the bank, it is good for dry bushing on and if I screw up it washes off easily. I also buy the clear tacky glue, it is great for securing trees and grass to the layout. I picked several bags of small dowels last weekend that i am cutting as logs for my bulk head flat bed car.
Paint, bumpy chenille, foam board, markers, some strip wood, and Matt medium.
Pot toppers[:)]
Brent
Paint, bass wood, brushes, and a lot of the same others have mentioned.
Craft paint, India ink, paint brushes, card stock, that laminated plastic stuff that signs are made of, paint pens, sheet cork, Ailenes tacky glue. I understand that they sell air brushes and compressors, but I haven’t seen those items in the local store.
In adition, I get Candy Tuft and Caspia from the dried flower section for tree building.
Acrylic paints, glue, matte & gloss medium, lichen, basswood, plaster. In short, basic supplies that are typically overpriced at an LHS.
With their 40 & 50% off coupons, most everything is cheaper there.
My wife and I were a Micheal’s on Sunday. I bought a small aluminum miter box. strips of wood to make lumber loads from, and a tube of Household Goop glue.
General craft supplies – especially paint brushes and brush cleaners. Not model paints, though; our local one only has about 20 shades of Testors enamel and 6 of acrylic.
They do have airbrushes and compressors (Badger). In our store, they’re hidden on a bottom shelf at the very back corner of the art supplies. You’d never see them if you weren’t looking for them, though. Teir prices are very high, though. I guess, if you bought them with the “50% off any one full priced item” coupon, it wouldn’t be too bad.
Its not Michaels but if you’re for want of certain supplies without a hobby shop, look to see if you have an art supply store that also caters to architects and engineers. Utrecht, for example. They don’t list the stuff on their website, but the local store here carries Plastruct sheeting and K&S rod and sheets. And there’s model building tools for working with those sorts of materials. There’s a lot of crossover with architectural modeling in our hobby, after all. Never really checked with the price, but that’s not really important to me. A dollar more in cost is less than I’d spend in time and gas money to drive to the nearest hobby shop.
Bakerboy-
just about anything you saw at Michael’s {or AC Moore or JoAnn fabric and crafts or the like} that you THINK you can use for MRR…well buy it cuz it will work.
I have studdied at various times of the year the fake flowers they ahve out for ones with TINY little pieces to them that would “scale down” to HO flowers and at $1 or so a stem, far cheaper than the Faller and other “flowers” for MRRing.
ALSO…look in your sunday paper there is usually an ad for Michaels and AC MOore with a coupon for 40%-50% off any one regular priced item. ALso At JoAnns, if you sign up at the door for their flyer, they too have discount coupon mailers they will send you. Michaels and AC Moore claim they will honor competitor’s coupons as well, I believe.
The A.C. Moore is “moore” convenient, so I usually go there. First, I hit their web site and find the coupon. There’s usually one for 40% off one item, which helps when buying that Envirotex. Michaels will take the A.C. Moore coupon, by the way. I have trouble finding the Michaels coupons - the Moore web site is better designed for that.
Craft paint, small brushes and also foam brushes. They’re great for smoothing out roadways. I usually get my balsa wood there, too. I picked up a bunch of small wood letters to spell out “Moose Mills” for a rail-served industry on my layout. I get Aileen’s Tacky Glue there, too. You might also pick up a package of floral wire - it’s convenient for modeling railings and the like.
I got some modeling clay and used it to make an impression of a piece of plastic artificial honeycomb used by beekeepers. Then I used the clay to make a latex mold, and the mold to cast my hydrocal cobblestones. I also used the clay to make a long set of stairs, and then made a casting mold of that.
Our A.C. Moore even had some Woodland Scenics trees. They’re very overpriced, but with that 40% off coupon they’re pretty reasonable. They don’t seem to have re-stocked them, though. Michaels was my source for “Instant Rust” which is great for doing heavily-rusted models.
And don’t forget the oher LHS - your Local Hardware Store. That’s my source for Durhams Water Putty, the “asphalt” for my roadways. They have music wire for connecting the Tortoises to the turnouts through 2 inches of foam, which is too long for the stock wire supplied with the Tortoise. Our True Value has brass rods and tubing, too, and a large assortment of rattle-can spray paint, along with drill bits and Dremel wheels.
Bird houses for a G-scale outdoor layout – cut off the perch, cut the round bird entries square to look more like windows, and paint suitable colors.
Michaels is OK, their selection of brushes is not that hot (particular fine detail brushes), but they have the items already mentioned in previous pots, many of which I have purchased (e.g. Craft paint, Pot toppers, casting resin, etc.). However, I did not see anyone mention the costume jewelry items, where I got a decent very fine chain at a good price (OK, links were out of HO scale, not so hot you want to detail a locomotive, but fine if you are using it as a junk detail item, or wrapped around crates or whatever, where exact dimensions are not critical). Speaking of slightly out of scale links, I brought tulle there for chain link fencing - they seem to carry only one size mesh size, and I am not sure it’s fine enough. AC Moore recently opened around these parts too, but their selection seems a bit less useful for hobby items.
And, BTW, believe it or not, Michaels carries items such as wreaths, glass vases, wood picture frames, etc, which can be used for NON-hobby decorating and craft purposes!. Image that! [:P]
Inexpensive acrylic craft paint for scenery, detail portions of background, occasionally structures…
Charm and decorative item as part of signs
Etc. A moderate amount of etc.
I sometimes paint brass steam locos. After my floquil locomotive black dries I spray them with Particia Nimrock’s clear acrylic sealer in gloss. This stuff takes decals better then anything I’ve ever seen ( it’s designed for decupage work ). I found it at Michael’s when I ran out of Testor’s glosscote and didn’t feel like trekking fifty miles to my nearest LHS. I’m really interested in hearing what the other respondants have found there!