Portable model buiding kit: 6 quart Sterilite shoe box, retired kit box.
A selection of paints, tools, containers, masking tape, decals, sand paper, all in a clear shoe box with a lid that doubles as a work surface. Cheap and effective!
Here's what it looks like, deployed: www.flickr.com/photos/wbaiv/4900842894/. Close-up on contents, not box: www.flickr.com/photos/wbaiv/4900843278/
This box has traveled across the up and down the US by car and airplane (checked luggage- its been viewed and leafleted by the TSA many times). Liquid / sticky contents are all non-toxic, everything except the glue is water based or at least water-thinned. There are hard tools, soft tools and consumables, including small amounts of raw materials. Occasionally parts of model kits travel around in the tool box. If I need more paints than one box holds or more raw materials, I typically bring a second shoebox. They stack nicely.
Contents:
Testor's blue label non-toxic glue is not toxic while drying, doesn't smell bad, but IS flammable while drying... some interesting chemistry there... It comes in a thick version, in a tube, but the thin stuff in the funny triangular containter is my favorite. I first saw it sometime before 1986, bought a container, and never looked back. I'd already switched from tube glue to liquid glue when I was a teenager.
A lot of Polly Scale hobby paint, some Testor's Acryl II, a little Tamiya, some Vallejo, some Gunze Sangyo. I switched to acrylic paints in the 1980s- years ago. I tried Polly S/Polly Scale, Tamiya, Gunze Sangyo and Pactra/Testor's model paints. Where Polly Scale hasn't got a color I want, I use Testor's Acryl II. Testor's paint is more widely available, if I'm mixing something for telling other people about it, I tend to use Testor's.
Future floor wax, (aka Johnson's Kleer). Also Polly Scale and Tamiya acrylic flat for surfaces.
Microscale Micro Set and Micro Sol
An X-acto knife (small handle, #11 blade) or two,
One or two stainless steel spatulas (the ones for moving grams and milligrams of dry reagents around) which I use as paint stirrers.
Masking tape: 3M's blue, long duration product is my general favorite. Tamiya's yellow, rice-paper, stretchable tape is my second favorite, and regular beige tape is the fall-back.
Paint brushes. I particularly like "flat" brushes, of all sizes, for painting stuff. For very small things. very small, round, brushes. Typically shorter rather than longer, but I do have some small, long ones too. I also use big, soft, lacquer brushes for applying Future Floor wax and other overall coatings.
Parts clippers - I used to use diagonal wire cutters, electronic style, but switched to purpose made clippers about 10 years ago. Good investment. Fingernail and toenail clippers are also usable.
Tweezers with thin, flat, ends. NOT the various items Squadron or your local hardware store sells. Huge metal fingers with grooved pluckers at the end. Forget it. I have a pair of electronic assembler's tweezers, with dead straight ends, just flat, thin, metal. Stainless steel, they taper down to thin at the working end. They're perfect for me. They work with little parts, decals, anything I want to do.
Files. Small flat files, Very small round files.
Waterproof sanding sticks. Fingernail style- foam cores, waterproof. Fine, medium and coarse. If you want to sand something flat ("block sand") just put the sanding stick against a rigid surface- kitchen counter next to the sink, or any other surface you can put a damp, abrasive tool on.
Wet-dry sand paper. This is the most consumable item in the box. Regular sand paper- 85 to 220, say, is robust stuff and wears out, but can be kept around and used long after its seriously worn. Wet-dry paper in the 600-800-1000-1200-1500-2000 grit ranges is much finer stuff. Use it, get the piece(s) the way you want them, toss the paper. Its worn out. For really find sanding, i don't just moisten the paper, I put a tiny dab of dish detergent on the paper or on the piece being sanded. This lubricates, just like cutting fluid on a saw or drill/tap/etc, floating off the damp dust that the sanding produces instead of allowing it to clump on the paper (or the part).
Sand a scrap of something with an interesting shape- a wing or horizontal stabilizer or rudder, using an old, junky piece of wet dry now in your tool box. Now try a brand new piece. Now try the brand new piece with detergent and water. You can * f e e l * the difference in how much the paper pulls against the plastic. The more pull, the more cutting.
IMG_5351
Portable model buiding kit: 6 quart Sterilite shoe box, retired kit box.
A selection of paints, tools, containers, masking tape, decals, sand paper, all in a clear shoe box with a lid that doubles as a work surface. Cheap and effective!
Here's what it looks like, deployed: www.flickr.com/photos/wbaiv/4900842894/. Close-up on contents, not box: www.flickr.com/photos/wbaiv/4900843278/
This box has traveled across the up and down the US by car and airplane (checked luggage- its been viewed and leafleted by the TSA many times). Liquid / sticky contents are all non-toxic, everything except the glue is water based or at least water-thinned. There are hard tools, soft tools and consumables, including small amounts of raw materials. Occasionally parts of model kits travel around in the tool box. If I need more paints than one box holds or more raw materials, I typically bring a second shoebox. They stack nicely.
Contents:
Testor's blue label non-toxic glue is not toxic while drying, doesn't smell bad, but IS flammable while drying... some interesting chemistry there... It comes in a thick version, in a tube, but the thin stuff in the funny triangular containter is my favorite. I first saw it sometime before 1986, bought a container, and never looked back. I'd already switched from tube glue to liquid glue when I was a teenager.
A lot of Polly Scale hobby paint, some Testor's Acryl II, a little Tamiya, some Vallejo, some Gunze Sangyo. I switched to acrylic paints in the 1980s- years ago. I tried Polly S/Polly Scale, Tamiya, Gunze Sangyo and Pactra/Testor's model paints. Where Polly Scale hasn't got a color I want, I use Testor's Acryl II. Testor's paint is more widely available, if I'm mixing something for telling other people about it, I tend to use Testor's.
Future floor wax, (aka Johnson's Kleer). Also Polly Scale and Tamiya acrylic flat for surfaces.
Microscale Micro Set and Micro Sol
An X-acto knife (small handle, #11 blade) or two,
One or two stainless steel spatulas (the ones for moving grams and milligrams of dry reagents around) which I use as paint stirrers.
Masking tape: 3M's blue, long duration product is my general favorite. Tamiya's yellow, rice-paper, stretchable tape is my second favorite, and regular beige tape is the fall-back.
Paint brushes. I particularly like "flat" brushes, of all sizes, for painting stuff. For very small things. very small, round, brushes. Typically shorter rather than longer, but I do have some small, long ones too. I also use big, soft, lacquer brushes for applying Future Floor wax and other overall coatings.
Parts clippers - I used to use diagonal wire cutters, electronic style, but switched to purpose made clippers about 10 years ago. Good investment. Fingernail and toenail clippers are also usable.
Tweezers with thin, flat, ends. NOT the various items Squadron or your local hardware store sells. Huge metal fingers with grooved pluckers at the end. Forget it. I have a pair of electronic assembler's tweezers, with dead straight ends, just flat, thin, metal. Stainless steel, they taper down to thin at the working end. They're perfect for me. They work with little parts, decals, anything I want to do.
Files. Small flat files, Very small round files.
Waterproof sanding sticks. Fingernail style- foam cores, waterproof. Fine, medium and coarse. If you want to sand something flat ("block sand") just put the sanding stick against a rigid surface- kitchen counter next to the sink, or any other surface you can put a damp, abrasive tool on.
Wet-dry sand paper. This is the most consumable item in the box. Regular sand paper- 85 to 220, say, is robust stuff and wears out, but can be kept around and used long after its seriously worn. Wet-dry paper in the 600-800-1000-1200-1500-2000 grit ranges is much finer stuff. Use it, get the piece(s) the way you want them, toss the paper. Its worn out. For really find sanding, i don't just moisten the paper, I put a tiny dab of dish detergent on the paper or on the piece being sanded. This lubricates, just like cutting fluid on a saw or drill/tap/etc, floating off the damp dust that the sanding produces instead of allowing it to clump on the paper (or the part).
Sand a scrap of something with an interesting shape- a wing or horizontal stabilizer or rudder, using an old, junky piece of wet dry now in your tool box. Now try a brand new piece. Now try the brand new piece with detergent and water. You can * f e e l * the difference in how much the paper pulls against the plastic. The more pull, the more cutting.
IMG_5351