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Over the last few years I've made a few modelling tools and I thought I would show them off and ask if anyone else has made or re-purposed something that they use. Sometimes I make things to help with modelling because I to damn tight. Sometimes it's because I can't find what I need. But mostly it's because I like making stuff, and giving the grey matter a bit of a work out. Circle Cutter Because I couldn't find a circle cutter that would cut circles smaller than 10mm, I made this. It can cut circles down to 3mm Diameter. It's by far my most used, home-made tool. Paint Swatch not strictly a tool as such, but this is one of my most useful modelling items. A couple of years ago I got feed up with Tamiya paint charts and the colours on the paint lids bearing little relation to the colour in the jar, so I started a long and very boring job of spraying all the 'XF' colours and the few 'X' colours onto strips of plastic. On the back is the few Alclad colours I have, and also the colours I have mixed. Incidentally, some of the metallic colours have been half over-sprayed with Tamiya smoke (X-19) to show the effect it produces. I've got a lot more of the 'X' range now and I really should do a new gloss swatch, but there is always something more interesting to do. Parts Rack Again, not really a tool in the usual sense, but it helps enormously. It's made from an old washing up rack that was about to be ditched as it was going rusty. I keep the sprues lettered from left to right so that it's easy to find the one I want. Corrugator For my recent BoB dio, I needed some corrugated sheets. The purpose made tools were either very expensive, or produced corrugations that wouldn't be in the scale I wanted – 1/48. I bought some aluminium 1mm wire (£4) and cut two pieces of ply 60mm x 60mm x 12mm. After a bit of experimentation, I wrapped the wire around the blocks, with a 2mm gap between each wire. Each wire was super-glued after making sure it was straight. For the corrugated panels, the best material I found was a takeaway foil container from my local Indian. It was just the right thickness to be strong enough to withstand use. Obviously the width of the foil will shrink because of the corrugations, so I cut the foil sheets 10mm wider than the blocks. Then it is simply the case of putting the foil between the blocks and standing on them. It took a few hours to make the dies, but now they are done, it takes seconds to produce a corrugated sheet. Not perfect, but good enough for me. Flexifile I thought that a flexifile might be useful, but I was put off by the £19 price tag. I made this out of a plastic clothes hanger in about 40 minutes - not pretty, but it works. The clips holding the sandpaper in place are sewing clips - which are easily strong enough for this job and very useful for other small clamping jobs as well (and you get 50 in a packet for a couple of quid). Variable Pressure Clamp Occasionally it's useful to hold a part in place with just light pressure – for example holding a canopy in place while it dries. The only thing I could find which looked like it would work was something called a multi-clamp, but it looked so simple I thought “I could do something like that” (saving £10 was another factor as well). This is the result – again made from a clothes hanger, plus a small bolt, a wing-nut, a 2mm thick metal washer and a pencil eraser. It is a little on the large size (the model in the photo is 1/48) so it may be better to use a child's hanger, but I'm not having another kid just to make another one, so this will have to do for now. Aircraft Stand About as simple as you can get; three mini planks; four pencils (with erasers); two screws and a load of holes. I made it a couple of days ago so it hasn't been used on a build yet – I've just used one of my old models to show how it works. Paint Mixing Palette We seem to get through loads of plastic bottles in our house, so when I need something to mix paint I just cut off the bottoms. So, does anyone else make or re-purposed anything that I can steal they would like to show? Thanks for looking - Gorby.