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Another reason for modeling


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This morning, I was on the floor on my hands and knees, looking for the third tiny part that had flown from my tenuous grasp this morning, and my moaning and cussing gave my wife an idea.  "Consider the times that you have to get up and look for parts as part of a physical workout," she said.   She had a point.   Other than trips to the bathroom and coffee pot, my main form of exercise these days seems to be looking for stray parts.

 

My latest build, a Toxso 1/72 M-102 105mm howitzer that I plan to sling-load under a CH-47, has a couple dozen teeny parts.  It occurs to me that kit manufacturers could establish a 1-10 scale, with a "1" being only one minuscule part, and a "10" being 10 or more.   Such a rating would be a clue as to where a kit stood, workout-wise.  This howitzer kit would rate a 10.  I'm getting too old for 10s.

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This will make your wife extremely happy!!!?!!!

Get one of those rechargeable hand vacs, see what I am saying!? They have a foam filter so the tiny parts don't go thru the motor! Once you figure you have covered the area get a kit box lid, preferably one that isn't folded, so the tiny bits don't have somewhere to hide, Hasegawa lids are great! Empty the catch bin of the vac and clean off the filter into the lid, then do your best CSI impersonation. Having one of those head band magnifiers helps and your favourite tweezers; latex gloves, little tabs with numbers on them, paper bags and the chain of evidence are your choice! I have found some tiny bits that I was not interested in folding or scratch building again and even a couple that managed to sneak off the bench when I wasn't looking!!!

HTH

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3 hours ago, SBARC said:

Wearing an apron and attaching the bottom edge of the apron to the front edge of your desk will help capture many stray parts.

I like this idea.  My wife sews, so I'll have her sew a strip of Velcro along the bottom, and I'll glue a strip under my workbench.  (Well, I call it my workbench, but it's actually the breakfast bar between our dining room and kitchen.)  While she's at it, she can make me a white one and a black one, so I'll have the correct Part Catcher for different colors of styrene.  While I'm gluing on Velcro strips, I'll glue a strip under the edge of the coffee table, where we eat 95 percent of the time, and where I regularly spill food on the carpet.  Great idea, SBARC.  Thank you!

 

2 hours ago, Flyboyf18 said:

Get one of those rechargeable hand vacs ...

I've tried vacuum cleaners.  For some reason, they pick up everything but the part I'm looking for.  Just luck, I guess.  Working over carpeting is the worst.  1970s shag is Lost Part Limbo.  

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