Model Building Essentials part 1

10 Items i consider crucial to decent model building.




10 more i feel will move your building skills to the next level will be the next article....


'I just got into model building and i want to know what i need to build them'


I see it asked every other week on one group or another so i will put my two cents in and compile a list.


Keep in mind this is an opinionated site, these are my opinions, you are allowed to disagree with them as you see fit, but, i will attempt to explain why each item is listed.


Crucial list:

Cutting mat: A cutting mat should be one of your first purchases when thinking of building models of any sort. They protect your work area, for those of you without a dedicated hobby room or desk, they protect the furniture from paint spills, nicks from hobby blades, or damage from glue. They give you somewhere to focus your building effort instead of sprawling and taking up an entire table top or kitchen countertop. They are inexpensive and can be found either at hobby and craft stores or even online.

Hobby Knife: A good quality hobby knife ( preferably with an anti roll handle, but if not it is easy to make them anti roll by taping a small piece of sprue to the handle shaft ) The hobby knife is one of the tools you will find yourself using almost every time you sit at the bench. spend the bit more money and get a quality one with a bit of weight to it. It makes sense to make sure it is comfortable in your hand since it is one of the most used tools you will have.

Sanding sticks: Another item i use daily, used for cleaning up attachment points, removing paint for mating surfaces, squaring up edges, bodywork and even sanding tires to make them look more realistic. I know many model builders who get a vast majority of their sanding sticks from beauty supply stores. you can buy a bulk pack of emory boards for a couple bucks. They have even started to carry foam backed emory boards that follow contours a bit better than the harder ones. The only two downfalls to the beauty supply stores in regards to sanding sticks...1.the availability of different grits, Hobby specific ones offer a wider array of grits from coarse down to ultra fine, and 2. In my experience, the grit they use for the abrasive, is more fragile on the beauty supply offerings. so you burn through sanding sticks quicker ( and be careful because on 2 separate occasions i have had the 'grit' somehow end up in a finished paint job )

Sandpaper: But i just said sanding sticks....yup .. and sandpaper. there are some things you simply cant do with a sanding stick, roll it into a cylinder to sand an inside curve... cut a thin ribbon and feed it through the paper wide spot to sand down a clearance issue. I prefer wet/dry sandpaper over the basic dry paper. it tends to last longer and if used wet it leaves a better finish than the dry alone.

Tweezers: A couple quality pairs of tweezers are all you need. the ones i keep on the bench are.. fine tip, flat tip, angled tip and a set of self closing ones. this is another area where paying out a bit more is well worth it. you will understand what i mean if you go the cheaper route. the day you have that tiny piece all ready to glue into place and....zing...since the tips didn't line up on the cheap tweezers, you just made a sacrifice to the carpet monster. No fun there..trust me

Glues and adhesives: (can of worms coming up) There is no one single glue that is good for everything pertaining to model building. On my bench i keep Tamiya extra thin ( used for joining styrene to styrene when i want a permanent bond with fairly quick dry time ) Testors Model master ( black squeeze bottle ) or Revelle contacta ( blue squeeze bottle with metal tip ) i use either of these when i want more positioning time between styrene to styrene connections. Next i have 2 CA or super glues, one thin, one gel. these i use when i need to attach dissimilar materials together, like resin to styrene, metal to styrene or even wood to styrene. the thin dries quicker and the thick gives you more positioning time before it sets up. I also keep a set of 5 minute epoxy on hand, this i use when i need a permanent attachment that is strong ( i use it mainly when making hinges for doors or trunks or attaching kit glass ) it can also be flowed into gauge faces to make them look like they have a glass front on them once dry. the last glue i have on the desk is good old Elmers white school glue, this i use anywhere i want the bond to be invisible ( headlights, tail lights, Plane canopies, Tank windows) while not a 'strong' bond, its more than sufficient to hold these items in place.

Decent Brushes: Nowadays i don't do much brush painting, aside from detail painting. a good set of brushes is imperative no matter how much you plan to use them. Cheap brushes cause nothing but problems, hairs fall out mid stroke, the brush tip does not hold its shape so they make painting harder than it needs to be. Invest in decent ones and keep them clean. You will get years out of good ones compared to days/weeks/uses out of cheap ones.

Fillers: No matter what type of kit you try to build, there is going to be a spot somewhere on there that you are going to want to either fill a gap or do some body modifications. you need something to fill these gaps that is sandable and compatible with the styrene in the kits. I keep 2 on my bench currently Vallejo acrylic filler in the squeeze tube ( water soluble, sands easily and doesnt shrink much* ) the other i use is a 2 part automotive spot putty. i use 2 part because it cures by chemical reaction instead of evaporation..this means 0 shrinkage ) I dont use any of the hobby aimed fillers like the squadron, tamiya, or whatever you want to call them because they dry by evaporation, which means that as they cure they shrink. Nothing worse than looking at one of your builds 6 months down the road and noticing that where you took all that time chopping , channeling, smoothing, sanding, and filling to make it perfect..has cracked through the paintwork because it kept shrinking even when the model was completed.

Tooth Picks: While this is going to seem like something many might overlook, i go through toothpicks every time i sit down. i keep a box of flat ones and a container with round ones at all times. The flat ones are great for applying small amounts of filler exactly where you want it. The round ones i use for anything from paint stands ( insert the tooth pick in a hole in the part, paint and stand up in foam until dry) to glue applicators ( even with the nozzle tips on most glues, they cant deposit a small enough bit of glue exactly where you want it without the risk of flooding the area with too much. i put the glue onto a piece of scrap plastic and use a toothpick to put just the right amount where i want it. no mess, no fuss.

Clamps: Now this is going to be a broad one so use it how you will. Clamp= anything you can use to hold two parts together during drying time to free up your hands. My most used clamps are a set of clothes pins which i took apart and reversed so the longer end is on the front. it gives more reach, and opens further. There are loads of different clamps available, find some you are comfortable using. Be careful not to use anything with too much spring or clamping force. too much force can break things instead of hold them.


****Honorable Mention****

Someone pointed out i did not include 'tape' on my list...tape does have its place somewhere on here but rather than juggle the whole article around we will call it item 10.5

Buy decent tape, not the cheap tan garbage that leaves residue behind every time you remove it. My go to for the past 5 years has been Tamiya tape and it has never let me down. You can use it to mask for paint , temporarily hold pieces together while glue dries and even use it to test fit or mock up a build to make sure things are going the way you intended them to.



Now my next post will go over some of the things i consider to be necessary to help advance kit building to higher levels.


Cya soon