What is the most useless thing you have bought

[Alan Hilton]

Another vote for Slec balsa stripper !!! wavey cuts every time .I bought a proxxon table saw which does the job very well

Alan

[Stephen Smith 14]

Dx8 worst purchase ever

[Jason-I]

BMFA membership

[Martin Harris - Moderator]

Posted by Peter Miller on 05/01/2021 14:48:53:

Posted by Basil on 05/01/2021 14:01:52:

Andy, you say you use a band saw to strip balsa. What blade do you use. Never thought of that as I thought the speed/coarseness of the blade would just make mince,eat of the balsa.

Bas

I know of someone who can cut .009" balsa sheet with a band saw. Don't ASK! He also builds subminiature engines.

Yes. That IS 9 thousandths of an inch

I was amazed when I discovered how well balsa sheet can be cut with the very coarse teeth on my chop saw's carbide blade.

[kevin b]

Can't think of anything at the moment. Of course it would have involved me spending money. This would have lead to a lot of soul searching prior to the purchase. However a friend of mine has bought a season ticket this year for the local Premiership football team. Does that count ?

[Rod Parsons 1]

Easy

A Toolststation glass cutter. Cheap, but complete rubbish. It wouldn’t cut pastry let alone glass.

Had some poor 5000 4 s turnigy lipos from Hobbyking. Complete waste of money and useless.

A very old set of Stanley Wood chisels my dad bought me about 45 years ago. Although they were from the age of British makes the best, they were made of soft cheese. I only kept them for opening and stirring paint.

 

Edited By David Ashby - Moderator on 05/01/2021 22:00:41

[Andy Stephenson]

Posted by Basil on 05/01/2021 14:01:52:

Andy, you say you use a band saw to strip balsa. What blade do you use. Never thought of that as I thought the speed/coarseness of the blade would just make mince,eat of the balsa.

Bas

Bas,

I use a 32TPI blade it looks like a junior hacksaw type. The manufacturers say it's for wood and the like but it cuts steel no problem. It cuts balsa OK but it leaves a slight fuzzy edge which is no problem to remove with a light sanding. I made the mistake of running them at too higher tension to start with and kept breaking them. Only tighten it as much as you need to grip the pulleys.

The Bandsaw Shop

Andy.

[Andy48]

A frequent traveller ticket on Eurotunnel.

[leccyflyer]

A Twister Quad. Better off watching paint dry for entertainment value=comes close but, on reflection most useless thing ever - two 3s1p Flightpower 3300mah lipo packs. Total garbage. Got less than 10 flights out of both packs before they died.

Edited By leccyflyer on 05/01/2021 23:00:54

[Doctor Chinnery]

Dremel Saw - - - if I'd tried one before I bought it - I wouldn't have, I'd have kept an eye on the classifieds until I found a second hand scroll saw (table size).

[Richard Wills 2]

Orange RX receiver, costly mistake.

[Roger Jones 3]

A Veron 'Fairey Delta 2' ducted fan kit.

The recommended ED 'Hornet' 1.5 cc diesel I put in it.

All the Jetex 'Tailored' scale kits except the larger 25 shilling 'Hawker Hunter'. 25 shillings was a huge amount at the time and you had to add the 'Jetmaster' engine. (Thank you auntie Con). But it was the only one that actually flew.

A MacGregor 'Converter Modulator' transmitter..

An Elmic 'Compact' escapement.

A TopFlite 'Roaring 20'.

The above might tell you how long I've been doing this stuff.

A plastic ice cream scoop. It's more flexible than the ice cream.

[robert chamberlain]

sad to hear all the comments about the SLEC balsa stripper. I have one but never set it up. How are people securing the U channel to a board? Epoxy, Shoe Goo, CA ? Bob

[Basil]

Hi, I bought a balsa stripper a couple of years ago, cant remember where from, but I think they are all from the same source. No complants, works well.( Dont rush it) Stuck to a base board with its own tape.

I also bought a Dremel type tool, yes I must admit they are over rated, scale 1 - 10 , 3 or 4 at most. Having had a work shop for some years making anything from Kithchen cabs to roof trusses I thought it would be nice to have a multi pupose SMALL hand power tool.

Bas

[Tim Flyer]

I use a mains powered dremmel a lot for grinding, cutting sanding and small hole drilling e.g servo screw holes . In fact I wouldn’t be without it. For cutting cowlings its superb. The extension drive is always attached and I have a hanging hook from the workshop ceiling. When I first bought it I was initially worried as I had been used to larger scale heavy duty tools, however it’s actually very good for models. It’s a modelling tool rather than house building one but as I have larger angle grinders and sanders and lots of larger builders gear that’s no problem for me. It’s nice to be able to grind or cut off a bolt in situ on a model. I certainly couldn’t do that with my larger gear. 

The one useless bit of dremmel kit I bought is their “pillar drilll/router stand”.
This I find totally useless as it is far too flexible and inaccurate to be used as intended.

I use a proper heavy bench Warco pillar drill instead .

Edited By Tim Flyer on 06/01/2021 10:43:09

Edited By Tim Flyer on 06/01/2021 10:49:02

[Martin McIntosh]

+++ for the SLEC balsa stripper, useless and just takes up space. Proxon table saw is fantastic.

--- for a Permagrit cut off wheel. Far too coarse for our use and I wore it out on one job.

What was wrong with the Elmic Conquest? Skipped occasionally but there was not much else then.

Orange Rxs. I have loads and have never had a problem, I even use them in some of my 12 month scale builds (9ch ones), but I use JR, not Spektrum which they do not like.

[Andy Stephenson]

+ another one for the Permagrit cut off wheel, not only far too coarse but horribly out of balance so useless in a Dremel multi tool.

A.

Edited By Andy Stephenson on 06/01/2021 21:30:13

[J D 8]

Galaxy models Typhoon, the most rubbish model I ever made. I felt that perhaps I had made a bad job of building it but later mentioned my problems with the Typhoon to the club expert Brian who made and flew some lovely scale aircraft. He had made a a Galaxy Typhoon some years before and said it was the worst model he ever had. Felt a bit better after that I did.