Whats you favorite tool?

[Bruce Richards]

What is you most useful/ used modeling tool?

I Thought it would be interesting to see what tools people are using and perhaps learn how to make some jobs simpler and easier buy using a different tool. If you could answer the questions below that would be good but just give any information you think would be helpful. 

What do you use it for?

Where did you get it?

Approximate cost? 

I have several but I will start with  the one \i use the most locking long reach forceps.

I use them for:

holding things while soldering

reaching inside tight spaces to grab cables or pick up dropped washers

holding small nuts

on the bench like a small vice.

I have 3 pairs that I got from the Nats last year for a pond each. 

 Life would be much harder without them. They are much better than a pair of long nose pliers because they lock and the long thin handles allow you to reach into tight spaces.

Look forward to all you interesting tools.

Bruce 

[Tim Mackey]

A hammer.

its a lump of metal on the end of stick, and I find it very satisfying to use in all sorts of situations, all too often to complete a project which I wasted far too much time on in the first place

I got it from a hammer shop.

The price of a hammer

My second most useful tool is my wife....and not only in the workshop

Sorry, guess I am just in one of those silly moods

[Bruce Richards]

Timbo,

Sorry to hear that you use your hammer more than you other tools . You must get very frustrated. I did use my hammer lat week after I killed my Travel Air (stalled dead stick landing). I tied to break out the much reinforced wing mounting plate  but failed. Must have been using the wrong technique.

Bruce 

[Tim Mackey]

Oh no I dont use it more than the other tools...it just fitted the criteria of "favourite"

The workshop accessory  I use MOST is probably my bin.

[Myron Beaumont]

Hope it's fireproof       The bin that is !

[Phil Claridge]

my glasses and mk one eyeballs

[Richard Wicker]

I agree with Phil, glasses and eyeballs. Apart from those, a trusty Swan Morton scalpel, a razor saw, a good set of french curves and a technical drawing/draughtsmans set of 1920's vintage, inhereted from my late Grandfather.

[Bruce Richards]

Richard I assume you draw up your own designes. What have you done lately?

Bruce 

[Richard Wicker]

Hi Bruce.

Yes, i get more from drawing up plans and building than i do from flying to be honest. Fitting it all in around my work is a big problem though, my employer seems to want first call on my time!

My last completed build was a free flight Fokker E111 for .75cc diesel power which i scaled up from a 1/72 drawing. Built as close to scale as possible (1/12) it has scale tail areas, zero dihedral and metal cowl and forward fuselage panels. The rigging is from control line wire (with the plastic coating burnt off) and is functional. It took a while to trim out, but yes it does fly. It goes to prove that you don't have to enlarge tails and crank on loads of non-scale dihedral to fly free flight, no matter what some people believe.

At present I'm building a Luton Minor, not my own drawing, but my own conversion to light weight radio from the old E. Fearnley free flight plan. It wont be true scale as all I've done is alter the construction to take the radio and also take the dihedral off it, but it should still look the part and i just wanted something small, relaxing and pretty to potter around with on the nice calm summer evenings.......If we get any!!

Drawings are under way for a 1/4 scale Sopwith Triplane, (yes, i know it's been done to death but I like the aircraft and a guy at the club with a Fokker Dr1 at 1/4 scale will be able to do it justice flying wise!) and a 1/4 scale PFALZ D111a, because it looks fantastic and i have some excellent documentation and colour profiles for it.

I find the drawing up and building fairly easy as long as I've an interest in the subject, which is why i don't do anything modern. "They stopped building aeroplanes when they took the propellers off them" is my motto (Except for the ME 262).

[winchweight]

Gotta be my Dremel. I use it all the time.

And for hand tools I love my prop reamer as it makes such quick work of a chore. Or possibly my pin vice, a very handy tool.

[Former Member]

[This posting has been removed]

[Chris Beer]

i was going to say hammer.

razor plane, stanley knife, cyno.

[Doug Ireland]

Ball-ended Allen Keys. For those hard-to-get-at places!

[David Ashby - Moderator]

Dremel cordless drill

Z-bender

soldering iron stand and.......

Tea mug

[David Martin 2]

I was going to say hammer too but they don't make 'em like they used to, I've always found them difficult to hold well anyway being a T handle but before long the nail heads seem to split the wood nowadays.

So I'll have to say that my favourite tool is a scalpel with a brand new blade in it, everything becomes sooo much easier immediately from balsa hacking (remember them days..) to covering to hinge slotting to spinner trimming to floss cutting around joined connectors to battery foam shaping to accurate fuel tube cutting to....

Yes, without those little 5 in a packet for a pound items, I would probably have have missed out on the first 20 years of a true modelling experience and jumped aboard the ready made instant fix era we have today.

[john powles]

Hi. my favorite tool is my dremel I have lots of tool bits for it + drill stand ,router ,flex drive, I use it on lots of different jobs -Its quite smiply the best tool in the workshop.

[Fats Flyer]

my favourite tool have got to be the wifes purse strings

[john powles]

Vinnie my mrs says if you want it you buy it -although she does buy ,or pays if its cheap enough for my birthday ,otherwise its on my bill. I do try to buy lots of tooling piece,s as I go along .like you IK alsohave several sets of forcepts for reaching into that near imposible spot .Cheers John.

[Fats Flyer]

hi john,

i normally get away with what i want when im a good boy.

if i do the cooking and the washing up or redecorate a room, she's putty in my hands.

[Chris Salomon]

This sounds too simple and lo-tech but my favourite is various sized and shaped pieces of balsa to which I have glued abrasive paper.  You may think that sand paper is flat when you have it on a sanding block but, no matter what tension you put on the paper, it still isn't flat at the edges.  Glue some onto bits of balsa and you have a nice flat square edge (or whatever shape you want).

[Myron Beaumont]

Chris   I do the same but with wet & dry on pine  - Lasts longer & can be cleaned with small brass brush.My always at hand tool is a roll of masking tape by the way (incedentally never owned a Dremel - I carve things by hand -part of the fun I reckon !) 

[JohnnyB]

Well, I've just started  modelling again after many years away, but before starting my current project, a Chris Foss UnoWot, I had to get an 8 x 10 shed to start with plus many other fittings etc, etc....

But apart from a nice solid full length work bench, I would not be without  my complete set of Permagrit abrasive tools, and a lovely collection of  various sash clamps and many large and small plastic clamps. In the good Old days I had to use clothes pegs...

Now, with a walk of about  14 paces, I'm in modelling Heaven. 

Oh, nearly forgot - The radio. Where would I be without my Radio 2........?? Mrs B always makes sure I'm well supplied with tea.........

John.

[Tim Mackey]

Wot no sticky buns !! Grounds for divorce along the lines of unreasonable behaviour and neglect I would say!!

[Bob Cotsford]

David razor plane and aluminium-oxide paper for finishing.

oh - and polyfilla to corrct the results of using the two above

[Nicholas Booth]

my t bar sanders, I now have 8, 4 short and 4 long with varying grades of sandpaper ready to turn all that balsa into dust. I has made sanding a joy of sorts.

I got them on a recent trip to the states for a meagre sum but couldn't live without them now.