Tools & Supplies
Discussions on the latest and greatest tools, glues, and gadgets.
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jabo6
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Texas, United States
Member Since: September 24, 2005
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Posted: Saturday, September 16, 2006 - 08:41 PM UTC
stir sticks from starbucks provide great looking pieces of rough lumber for fences etc.
11Charlie
#099
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Indiana, United States
Member Since: March 04, 2004
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Posted: Saturday, September 16, 2006 - 10:45 PM UTC
Gosh, What don't I use?...

One of my favorite things to do is to disassemble old watches and other gadgets. They have tons of very small parts that can be used in a number of modeling applications. I sort the parts into one of those drawer organizers you would use in the garage for screws, nails, etc. The 4.2" mortar in my gallery has no less than a half dozen such parts.

I also have to admit to confiscating those little clear plastic cups you get at church for communion ...They're great for mixing paints and washes.
Murfv
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Carlow, Ireland
Member Since: March 02, 2005
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Posted: Friday, September 22, 2006 - 04:58 AM UTC
Any one use daily disposible contact lenses, the one that come sealed
in little plastic cups covered with foil, 5 to a strip?
The foil can be rubbed smooth once the plastic cups are removed and can be used for a mutitude of applications.
The cups can be used for small amounts of paint and turn them over and they are great for holding superglue.
Vincent
Removed by original poster on 12/02/06 - 02:29:19 (GMT).
Choirboy
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England - North East, United Kingdom
Member Since: December 01, 2006
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Posted: Friday, December 01, 2006 - 12:31 AM UTC
Other than chinese takeaway containers, what else is good for mixing paints in or on? thnks! Possibly !!lol
Halfyank
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Colorado, United States
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Posted: Friday, December 01, 2006 - 04:37 AM UTC
All those CDs you're sent from AOL all the time make good paint palettes.

MSGsummit
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Tennessee, United States
Member Since: November 16, 2002
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Posted: Friday, December 01, 2006 - 06:01 AM UTC
I usually have a beer or two when I'm modelling so I have quite a store of bottle caps. I use them for holding small amounts of CA and also for mixing small amounts of paint. They come in especially handy for me when I am mixing slightly different shades for figures.
I also use the plastic coffee stir sticks from McDonalds for stiring my paint
Shadowfax
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Michigan, United States
Member Since: November 02, 2006
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Posted: Monday, December 25, 2006 - 05:28 AM UTC
I find this material to be ideal for scratch building. It's the wrapping from a candy that is popular this time of year (Christmas).

It's a VERY thick tin/aluminum foil that is easy to cut with scissors or a hobby knife. It can be burnished smooth with your finger nail and holds it's shape well in small forms.

I think it's an ideal replacement for lead foil - which is not healthy for you. And you get a chocolate treat to boot.


CPTKelley
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Pennsylvania, United States
Member Since: January 15, 2005
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Posted: Saturday, December 30, 2006 - 04:58 PM UTC
First of all, I want to say that this thread is a GREAT idea!

I work as a Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist (CRNA) and a hospital is a great place for free modeling supplies.

-Rubber Gloves for holding the model while painting.
-10ml Syringes for mixing paints
-Hypodermic Needles for gun barrels and mixing paint
-MANY IV drugs come packaged in containers that are perfect for using as a palette.
-Laparotomy pads (unused!) are excellent for cleaning paintbrushes, cutting up for use as camo netting, bedrolls, etc., and for polishing canopies (and your car!).

Now, I know some of you think I'm pilfering from work, and to a small degree I am...but the lap pads are often included in surgical trays that do not call for them, and they get tossed out. Not in my O.R! Rubber gloves are often dropped on the deck when pulling one out of the box, so I figure if I take 5 or 6 home a month, and put them to good use...it's better than if they were wasted. And the 10ml syringes...well, I guess I'm pilfering a few..less than a dozen a year, probably...but we waste more than that by far, so..I put 'em to good use!

If you don't work at a hospital, maybe you know someone who does...ask them to look for stuff that gets thrown away, and bring some home.
ladymodelbuilder
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Virginia, United States
Member Since: February 26, 2002
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Posted: Saturday, December 30, 2006 - 11:24 PM UTC
I save the little plastic tab containers my contacts come in. I use them to mix paint in and to hold a small bit of super glue in.



diverdown724
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Ontario, Canada
Member Since: January 21, 2007
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Posted: Sunday, February 04, 2007 - 09:33 AM UTC
I have found the "Dollar stores" to be a fantastic resource for stuff. Wooden Stir Sticks (packs of 500) for 1 dollar. They also have toothpicks, storage containers and pretty much anything else you'd need cheap.
Halfyank
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Colorado, United States
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Posted: Sunday, February 04, 2007 - 10:54 AM UTC
I just thought of this one the other day. My wife and I are on a diet and we buy this sugar free drink mix. It's like Crystal Lite but it's the Wal-Mart Great Value brand. It comes in a round tube that has a plastic lid on it, and each serving comes in a small plastic container, sealed with a foil cover. The lid for the tube can be used as a palette, or something for a wash. The individual containers make great paint mix containers. The foil can be used for sings, straps, etc.

Lee-Enfield
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British Columbia, Canada
Member Since: February 25, 2007
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Posted: Thursday, March 01, 2007 - 08:59 AM UTC
For those of us who are blessed enough to work at a hardware store (Rona, Home Hardware, Home Depot or the like,) or at least know somebody who does:
When mouldings/baseboards are shipped, they frequently come with strips of hardboard and sometimes MDF (medium density fibreboard) used as spacers. These get thrown away, usually. These can be used as diorama bases, or cut and used in any way you can imagine, like building frontages, maybe even as a form for a stone fence...
Another one from the same source is broken vanity tops. Occasionally they are damaged in shipping and cannot be repaired or sold for discount. These also are thrown out. Hmmm... marble vanity... thousands of pieces of rock when broken up a little bit more?
matt
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New York, United States
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Posted: Thursday, March 01, 2007 - 04:02 PM UTC
It's usually "Good luck" getting some of that stuff....Allthough I did manage to get a lifetime supply of .060" Styrene from the HD I work at. they were redoing all the Signs in Millwork...... I kinda fast-talkd an ASM into letting me take them......LOL Next Moulding Shipment I'll have to look at the packaging If the General Public knew half of the perfectly good stuff we toss out.....UGH
HauntedPen
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Pennsylvania, United States
Member Since: March 15, 2005
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Posted: Friday, March 02, 2007 - 01:30 AM UTC
Aluminum soda pop cans make nice sheet metal for things from bent bumpers and sideskirts to flags to leaves for plants in diormas.

If you make your own molds using RTV rubber, old molds can be diced up and used as filler for new ones so that you don't have to waste so much of the expensive rubber. Just be sure the old molds you dice up are of the same brand as the new ones you are making or you could end up with gooey, unusable mess (voice of experience).

Large, empty, plastic containers with screw on lids are great for disposing of old blades. Just cut a slot in the lid. Sculpting in cured Magic Sculpt, I tend to snap the tips off of a lot of #11 blades. On that note, old blades with broken tips can be used for creating different textures in hardened epoxy putty.

In the summertime, popsickle sticks make great stirrers for mixing 2-part epoxy and old plastic lids from anything from coffee containers to Pringles chips cans are a great surface for mixing the epoxy on.

If you are getting new "do it yourself" furniture, such as a desk or bookcase, the packing styrofoam in the boxes often comes in sheets. Great for doing diorama landscapes.

Sometimes protective plastic packaging that look like styrene isn't really styrene and model glues such as Testors or Tamiya won't melt it. Before throwing the plastic away, however, try using a different model glue on it, instead. I've often had success with Tenax 7R and Plastruct cement where other brands have failed.

Your computer printer can be a fantastic modeling tool. It's great for making miniature packages and such printed on cardstock and bond paper. If you have a scanner or your printer is an "all--in-one" type (with scanner copier also built in) you can scan or copy anything from model boxes to cigarette packs and scale them down. If you do't have a printer, you make still be able to get the stuff resized using the printers at a copy center, such as Kinkos--it just won't be free.

Old paitbrushes can be used for anything from drybrushing to stirrers and mixers to being carved into handmade sculpting tools or serve as handles for new ones you make.

This one's not necessarily free, but many modelers already have the required ingredients lying around. If you have superglue/CA glue and talcum powder, you can make a thick putty-like paste that is great for filling in gaps and seams. It hardens very quickly (even quicker if you have an accelerant, such as Zip Kicker or Jet Set) and can be wet sanded very smooth after it hardens. You can also adjust how thin or thick a putty you want by varying the ratio of glue to powder.

Steve K.
Timd346
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Illinois, United States
Member Since: March 03, 2007
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Posted: Monday, March 12, 2007 - 06:04 AM UTC
If u but boxes of paper from staple office depot or any other office supplie store u can take the lids of off them and take of one of the long sides of the lid u can make a painting/cutting board it is also great to cut up and make paint shelfs.

Tim
KoSprueOne
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Myanmar
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Posted: Tuesday, April 03, 2007 - 04:36 AM UTC
Can anyone here get any use out of these plastic shapes?
I get them out of the discard bin at work and now I have too many in my room.
They are the durable plastic material, not compatible with liquid hobby cement.



approx Dimensions:

scoop thing -
L 8 5/8"
W 4 1/2"
H 2"
weight each 104g or 3.7 oz

flat thing -
L 9"
W 4 3/4"
H 7/8"
weight each 115g or 4.05 oz




troubble27
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New Jersey, United States
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Posted: Tuesday, April 03, 2007 - 05:00 AM UTC
IM glad someone revived this thread, I had a good one on Saturday. My wife and I brought home some chinese food. She asked for chop sticks, and the lightbulb went off in my head! These are great for stirring paint, RTV, resin, etc, and also make good wooden poles for things like telephone poles, etc.

Gary
KoSprueOne
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Myanmar
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Posted: Wednesday, April 04, 2007 - 06:27 AM UTC
Yes, those bamboo chop sticks are very useful. Good one, troubble27. Also if you tape an old exacto blade to the end, then stick on a model part, from the back or bottom of the part, then spay paint. Or just fold over a piece of masking tape so it's sticky side out, then it should work too.

Also :

A couple more overstock, overcollected stuff. These are made of the same plastic that VHS tape cartridges are made of and are compatible with Rez-N-Bond, maybe hobby cements for styrene, and maybe Plastruct cement. And of course CA and epoxy.



Stucture thing -
approx dimensions

47g or 1.6 oz each
W 2"
L 7"

Box thing -
approx dimensions

121 g or 4.3 oz each
W 2" at widest place
L 6 7/8"
H 4 1/2"

Red4
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California, United States
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Posted: Wednesday, June 06, 2007 - 02:22 AM UTC
I got lucky enough to marry a nurse practitioner who supplied me with enough hypo's for life. Seems there was a water leak in the ceiling above the storage closet at work and everything inside the closet got soaked....so it had to be tossed out due to contamination. I ended up with boxes and boxes of hypos and disposable scalpels. As for free stuff, wooden and plastic coffee stir sticks from the local eateries, cup lids, and napkins. There is an abundance of real estate signs in the area that get blown over from the winds. They are usually plastic and provide a huge amount of material. Check the gutter for small pebbles and rocks washed there from rains / run-off. They work great for groundwork. While not free, a roll of masking tape lasts me for years. I use it to tape parts together to check fit things, mix 2 part epoxy on, super glue, paint pallet, parts holder for painting and about 1000 other things. Good thread. Keep it going. "Q"
Lee-Enfield
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British Columbia, Canada
Member Since: February 25, 2007
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Posted: Sunday, June 17, 2007 - 11:30 AM UTC
Matt: Color me stupid, here, but hypodermic needles? The only thing I've thought of using them for (my wife's a Veterinary Technician) is injecting garlic butter or other flavorings while I'm BBQing... Never thought of the scalpels, though!

I love your idea about checking the gutters, dude! If a person asked their neighbors or friends with different coloured rooves, you could develop a fair supply of different "rock." Might get some strange looks, though...

Gary: Chopsticks? Oh, yeah... beats buying dowelling!
matt
Staff MemberCampaigns Administrator
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New York, United States
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Posted: Tuesday, June 19, 2007 - 04:31 AM UTC
The Syringes are GREAT for filling resin molds........ and with a blunt needle tip applying glue.
Red4
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California, United States
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Posted: Monday, July 30, 2007 - 02:31 AM UTC

Quoted Text

Matt: Color me stupid, here, but hypodermic needles?



Sorry for the lengthy delay in replying to this. I use them as gun barrels on everything from aircraft to armor to anything in between. Found a new use for them recently as turnbuckles on my WWI a/c. I slip them over the rigging and slide them into position and glue in place with some white glue and viola', turnbuckles. I cut them with a cut-off wheel in my Dremel. (Ensure you wear some type of safety glasses when doing this as it is very easy to lose an eye if the cutting wheel shatters) I ended up with a dime sized piece of cut-off-wheel-shrapnel imbedded in my cheek just under my eye from this. The safety glasses came out most quickly after that happened. "Q"
04090
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England - East Anglia, United Kingdom
Member Since: September 13, 2006
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Posted: Monday, July 30, 2007 - 11:13 AM UTC
04090
hi all i go to my local camera shop and get a bag full of film canisters
you can mix paint in them and seal it and it wont go hard,
yours cyril.
Lee-Enfield
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British Columbia, Canada
Member Since: February 25, 2007
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Posted: Friday, August 03, 2007 - 09:21 AM UTC
Matthew: I hear ya there, guy! Very inventive, using the needles as turnbuckles! And dang, dude... wounded while modelling! Ouch! But, it can happen with hand tools, too.

Cyril: Of course... why would they need to hang on to them? Great idea!