Working with Photo-Etch

My favorite tool for working with PE is a simple ceramic tile. They are about 0.50 each at stores like Lowes or Home Depot. They are very hard and very flat and come in very handy.

I use an X-Acto knife with a #10 blade (rounded, not the pointed #11 blade) and a ceramic tile to get the parts off the frets. The tile keeps the parts from bending, but it's kind of rough on the X-Acto blades. Use a very small file to carefully clean up the part after cutting it loose.

PE parts are easily bent. Another use for a ceramic tile is to straighten them back out. Put the part on the tile and flatten it back out with the back end of an X-Acto knife.

another tip, use CA glue. ordinary styreen glue won't work with metal.
And get some good tweezers for holding small PE parts.

As for the tools:
www.missionmodels.com make some tools that make working with P.E a dream.
They are a little on the pricey side but they will last you a lifetime of P.E fun.
You can get by without them, but they will save you a lot of heartache.
There is also a ad somewhere in the FS magazine that offer a "scissor" like cutter for crisply cutting P.E parts. Sounds like a good investment.
Hope this helps somehow.

I have figurede out how to cut things out with out mucking them up. I have figured out how glue them. What I haven't figured out is how to get those nice crisp bends with 1/48 cockpit panels. Anmy help would be very much appreciated. B TW, are there any FAQs or good web sites that cover working with PE?
Thanks,
Dale Neidhammer
dneid@austin.rr.com

There was a lengthy discussion not too long ago on Photo Etch bending. Check out the following:

http://www.finescale.com/fsm/community/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=40837

I use the small pair of scissors in a Swiss Army knife for cutting off the parts. It's very accurate, easily controlled and seldom requires clean up.

Go to the cosmetics aisle at your supermarket or drugstore and get a cuticle scissors with a fine flat point and a fine point tweezers they really came in handy.

Oh dont forget the magnifying glass/table light...your eyes will thank you..

good luck