Hobby Basics - Tools

"Oh nooooooes, another boring of these: use this and that tool! babbling" you may think now. But as not all my readers and hobbiest in general are pros and have years of experience in miniature painting or terrain crafting, I will do a short(?) series of the tools I (!) use. I will give no advices to buy this or that, I will just give a statements of the experiences I made (or make) with the mentioned tools.. Hope you will like it though.

Pliers 

Often needed and a long time not in my toolbox: Pliers! I don't use any fancy and expansive pliers. I bought a small set of fine mechanics pliers in the hardware store and am pretty happy with them. I didn't want one for all, I wanted one for cutting out the miniatures from sprues, one for bending miniatures, wire and so on. I think they went over the tray for arround 6€ so not really expensive and something I couldn't hardly go wrong with.

A set of small pliers

Cutters

Again something I really needed. I have one for the donkeywork like cutting styrodur, MDF, sprues and so on. It has an extractor blade which could be broken for a new sharp edge. I got mine from the one euro/dollar store because I wasn't willed to pay more for a better one.

Basic cutter with breakable blade

I know that there are expensive ones with metal slide rails and a more stable handle, but for the detail work I have my scalpel. Mine is a pretty old one I got from my grandfather some time ago, it is very durable, nearly indestructable and the blades where made for orthopedic technicans. Sharp as hell these little beasties... Perfect for removing mould lines and doing exact cuttings in miniatures.

Scalpel with changeable blades

Files

Pretty standard things. I got some diamant files for jewellry crafting but am not really happy with them because of their shapes. They do their job, but needle files would be much better. But in my opinion files are not really necessary, for removing  mould lines I have my scalpell and if that won't work I could use sandpaper. Nonetheless I have some and IF I use them, they get their job done. And as they were pretty cheap I don't care if they are only scarcely used.

Diamant art files

Tweezers

Again some pretty basic stuff. I went nuts without them. They are really helpfull for getting all those teeny-weeny things I have to grab and glue on my miniatures or terrain pieces. Again I bought a pretty standard one for no more than two euros. The only thing I looked for were riffled "grippers" so that they have a better grip (this isn't really visible on the photo).

Basic tweezers

This is it. As said pretty basic things. I plan to write some more hobby basic articles on brushes, colors, electronic tools and all the other stuff I have lying arround.  If you have a special wish and coincedentally I use the stuff, I will write about it because as I stated earlier I will only tell you what I use not about the things which are evangelised throughout the net.

So long,

Paradox0n

All parts of the Hobby Basic series:

Hobby Basics Part 1 - Tools
Hobby Basics Part 2 - Glues