In my original Getting Started: Hobby Tools article I wanted to discuss what I felt were the necessary tools to handle assembly of miniatures that any new hobbyist would need in their collection. That isn’t all of the tools that I use regularly though and as a follow up, I wanted to touch on other tools that I use quite often and why.
Other Commonly Used Tools
One of my most used tools is a is a curved tip tweezers. There are a ton of these out there as tweezers is something that most people have at least a basic tweezers in their bathroom for grooming. However, the curved tip I find is very useful for grabbing small bits, dipping in glue, and then using to attach to a model where my fingers would just be in the way. Maybe it’s just that I am getting older, or maybe I am just getting smarter but I rarely assemble anything that has smaller bits these days without reaching for my tweezers.
Plastic glue is ideal for polystyrene plastic model kits. While not all plastic will work with this kind of glue, such as the plastic that a lot of board game miniatures are made out of, there are enough models out there that this does work with.
Plastic glue will melt the plastic together rather then gluing it, so you do have to be careful not to apply it to exterior surfaces where you would destroy the model’s detail.
A good plastic glue then needs to have a quality applicator. You can purchase a very inexpensive tube of plastic glue, but it’s going to get everywhere, create little strings, and cause problems.
Rulers, particularly a metal ruler, are incredibly useful. Particularly when working on terrain. Not only having a straight edge handy to ensure you are drawing a straight line that has been measured correctly. After all, carpenters say measure twice and cut once.
Whether you are making foam core terrain, cutting cardboard for terrain, or just need a quick straight line I find having a ruler on hand is useful.
What’s Next?
Well, hopefully by now you have a pretty complete hobby tool box and are able to complete all of those hobby tasks. Just taking a glance at my hobby desk that covers all of the tools that I have at hand. In future articles I plan to dive into more detail on specific tools I use for terrain making that go beyond my miniature assembly tool kit.
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