Tips and tricks needed!

[JohnTolcher]

Hi Nelson,
You can buy sanding sticks but they're never the right shape for me. Often I find home made ones are more useful. I like to make them from paddlepop sticks, cut to shape then sanded smooth. Then I glue on sandpaper, usually I use superglue although it can take a number of tries as the wood absorbs the first layer of glue.

The best thing is that you can make them the exact shape and size you require, I like to make a curved profile at the end to fit into tricky places:


This one was probably a bit large and coarse for HO, but that's the concept.

Cheers

[nalmeida]

Thanks for the tip and the ellusive picture John, costumized tools seem the way to go.

[marc_reusser]

Dallas's suggestions are all very good.

The only two cents that I would add is;

For sanding straight edges, flat surfaces and large areas, I have 4 different grits of "wet sanding" sandpaper mounted to 30cm sq., 6mm thick glass plates (glass is usually perfectly flat)....and when I sand with this...or just with sanding sticks, I always use some water while sanding....this way the paper/stick cuts much faster, cleaner, and smoother.

When using something such as the Tamiya regular putty. I will occasionally/where needed in hard to reach. or hard to sand areas, use a brush dipped in Liquid styrene glue (like Plastruct, or Tamiya, liquid cement)...and smooth out or feather the putty.

Lastly, in tight areas, or around certain raised details, I will use a Fiberglass eraser/pencil, to sand putty, joints, seam lines, or flash. This is sometimes used by itself, or after sanding with a stick/sandpaper (to finish and clean up).....it all depends on what/how much is needed.

.....Oh... I use a lot of those hobby sanding sticks.....whenever needed I cut them into thin strips, or other shapes, as needed to fit the exact space or area I need to work/sand. They are a real pain to cut.....but if you do it correctly, the cut edge will give you a perfectly sharp sanding edge, that works great along raised detail and mouldings such as you sre workng with.

[David Emery]

Dallas's suggestions are all very good.

The only two cents that I would add is;

For sanding straight edges, flat surfaces and large areas, I have 4 different grits of "wet sanding" sandpaper mounted to 30cm sq., 6mm thick glass plates (glass is usually perfectly flat)....and when I sand with this...or just with sanding sticks, I always use some water while sanding....this way the paper/stick cuts much faster, cleaner, and smoother.
...

I'd suggest using marble tile instead of glass.  14" square tiles are pretty cheap, and if you drop it, the tile will shatter but nowhere near as bad as the glass will shatter!

But I do use glass on top of all my work surfaces.

dave

[Lawton Maner]

Another use for the fibre-glass erasers Marc refered to: if you accidentally get a tad to much solvent on a styrene joint, a quick flick with the eraser will buff out the shiny spot once the solvent evaporates.  Several years ago when building a model of a C&O RR station, I buffed the entire thing before priming to get a uniform surface.

[nalmeida]

Thanks for the in depth explanations guys. Plenty useful tips all around.